Compare how Billy treats the old hound in the first chapter, with how hard he works as a child to get a pair of dogs. How does the first chapter help us understand his love for these dogs?

He gets down on his knees and coaxes out the redbone hound, discovering that the dog is mud-caked and scrawny, and obviously hungry. His footpads have been worn down, showing that he has made a long journey. This explains what a hound is doing in town.

The man takes the hound home, bathes and feeds him, and lets him rest. Late the next day the hound leaves willingly, heading east, and the man likes to think he might live in the Ozark Mountains of Missouri or Oklahoma, "a long way from the Snake River Valley in Idaho." The speaker assumes that the hound will find his home and return to a happy master. Still, he leaves his gate open, just in case the dog returns.

The man realizes that this hound has stirred up memories more than fifty-years-old, of his boyhood, a baking powder can, and two little red hounds. He carries in firewood, lights a fire in the dark, and pulls up a chair. The flame dances off two cups on his mantle, the larger gold and the smaller silver, and he takes them down, caresses them, and drifts back in memory to his boyhood.We see this same empathy for dogs in Billy's life.