Love and Moondogs — Story, Setting & Ideas

A Protest Built on Contradictions

The opening scene immediately undercuts its own seriousness. The women's protest is both earnest and ridiculous: they use a kitchen stool, a flag, and a borrowed dog to make their point. Martha's speech is filled with dramatic flourishes—'Fellow Americans!'—but the dog's frantic howling undercuts her authority. The man in the leather jacket who tries to take the dog down is met with physical resistance, and the scene devolves into slapstick. This tension between high moral purpose and low comedy persists throughout the story.

The Debate Over Dog Nature

The middle section shifts to a debate between Martha and Mr. Cherkassov, a Soviet representative. He explains the difference between 'true dogs' descended from golden jackals (Canis aureus) and 'false dogs' from wolves (Canis lupus). The former, he claims, must love and be loved or die; the latter are aloof and loyal only to one master. Martha's dog Fiffalo is presented as a pure jackal type, while the Soviet moondog is described as having wolf blood, making it 'not even a dog' in Martha's view. This pseudo-scientific taxonomy becomes a vehicle for Cold War ideology, with each side claiming moral superiority through canine genetics.

The Ironic Reversal

Mr. Cherkassov's argument leads to a surprising turn: if the moondog is not a 'loving' dog, Martha concludes it does not deserve rescue. The protest's foundation—that the dog's suffering is a crime—crumbles when the dog's nature is redefined. This reversal is sharp and unsettling, suggesting that the women's compassion is conditional on the dog fitting their emotional template. The story does not resolve this contradiction; instead, it leaves the reader to question whether love and loyalty are inherent or culturally constructed.

Voice and Structure

McKenna uses a brisk, ironic third-person narration that shifts between absurd action and earnest debate. The dialogue is stylized: Martha speaks in clipped, commanding phrases ('Two block. Vast hauling and belay.'), while Mr. Cherkassov uses formal, almost academic language. The structure alternates between physical comedy (the dog being hoisted, the scuffle) and intellectual sparring (the taxonomy of dogs). This juxtaposition keeps the story unpredictable. The excerpts do not reveal the ending, but the pattern suggests that the ideological clash will not be neatly resolved.

Readers should pay attention to how McKenna uses the dog as a symbol that shifts meaning: from victim to pawn to unworthy subject. The story's brevity (7,428 words) rewards close reading of its dialogue and descriptions. The Cold War setting is not just background but the engine of the plot, and the debate over dog breeds is a coded argument about human nature and political systems.

Even now, I think of that flagpole hound and the quiet ache beneath its satire. There is a lonely kind of tenderness in arguing about loyalty through a dog’s eyes. Boy meets dyevitza — Story, Setting & Ideas shares that same shy pulse—two souls circling a familiar estrangement, needing only a word to bridge the cold space between them.