The cruelty of humans towards animals is a theme that shapes and drives the plot. In the exposition, the narrative reveals that the calico cat was abandoned on the side of the road by the family who used to own her. Appelt condemns the intentional or inadvertent cruelty of humans, emphasizing that a creature who has been loved and then forsaken is the loneliest of all things: “There is nothing lonelier than a cat who has been loved, at least for a while, and then abandoned on the side of the road” (1).

Similarly, Ranger’s owner, Gar Face, treats him with appalling cruelty, chaining him to the house in anger after inadvertently shooting him during a hunt: “There had been no apologies on the part of the man, just a swift kick in the side from his steel-toed boot, a kick that burned as hot as the bullet lodged in his leg” (24). Gar Face’s indifference about shooting Ranger is clear in his choice to also kick the dog. Ranger’s function to Gar Face as a mere tool, rather than a creature with an emotional experience, is clear in his choice to tie up the hound and neglect him: “[Gar Face] chained [Ranger] to the post, useful only as an alarm, as a hound who bayed when animals came too close, a dog trapped in a twenty-foot circle.