He missed the routine most of all.  Being a good boy.  Being understood by the now long-departed “hoomans” as a good boy.  Absent that routine and really any defining structure at all, why bother being a good boy at all?

By all accounts, dogs — and cats, rats and pigeons — had already shown considerable brain development in the years since the bipeds left, adopting a simplified form of what they called English and even learning to operate simple machines.  Nothing focuses the mind quite like revenge, and these machines were generally believed to be the key to hunting down the creatures who’d abandoned them in this place.

He’d taken to walking himself in the early morning.  A bit ridiculous, given that he’d been toilet-trained for a decade at this point and relieving one’s self outdoors was a violation of the city ordinance.  A hundred yards or so out, he caught a reflection of bright red on his platinum fur and yelped.  Softly, thank God.  After all, he was on thin ice to begin with as a dog who’d scrimped and saved his way into a cat neighborhood; the last thing he needed was to be the story of the day in the gossip mill.

Gathering himself, he continued on, but a dog can’t ignore his tracking instincts for long…