This chapter's epigraph comes from the dog's ear: "snatching a puppy's duty to be happy" . It's not clear whether this is a reference to the fact that the dog likes the narrator, or whether it's an allusion to the idea that a dog should be happy when he's with someone else. The narrator, however, doesn't seem to understand what's going on. He tells the dog to sit down, but the dog jumps on him anyway, and the narrator can't bear to let him play with him. The dog tells the boy to "go get the ball" , and claire taps him on the shoulder to stop playing with him, but he won't listen. He warns the boy that if he plays with the dog now