A failed writer lives with his girlfriend, a naturalist, in a large state park. She has decided to put down her elderly dog, and he offers to do it as a sign of his commitment to her. Reluctantly, he gets his girlfriend's rifle and takes the dog outside. There, there are remnants of a party from the night before that they'd held almost by accident as people came by. It had been wonderful summer fun until they had to rescue the dog, half drowned, and unable to get up the steep rocks near the lake. Now, the dog sniffs all the places she knew by heart, as she has lived there her whole life. The writer thinks back to all the stories his girlfriend tells him, about the natural history of the park, and also the sad ones about unpredictable weather that causes more animal deaths than usual. He thinks of the melancholy she sometimes has. In the clearing he has decided upon, he sits next to the dog one last time, then does the deed. He rows her out to an inlet where his girlfriend had decided she wants the dog buried. He will return only once, alone again, after he and his girlfriend are no longer together, and he will go by their house and see that no one is home, that no one is ever home anymore. He thinks about the decisions that led to her departure.