Throughout “A Dark Brown Dog,” the third-person narrator presents the child’s situation as marred by the violence of his father. When he cannot avoid his father, he suffers terrible blows. Even as a toddler, he learns to hide, but the safety is only temporary. Finally, when he wants to rush to be with his dog, he can only move slowly backwards.

After the child brings the dog home, his father begrudgingly allows the dog to remain but often violently attacks the dog. On one occasion, the crying child tries to shield the dog. While he successfully protects the animal, the child is “struck in the head with a very large saucepan from the hand of his father.”

The recurring impression is that the child cannot totally escape the violence that is apparently routine in the household. Instead, he identifies spaces that can serve as safe havens, although he knows that such security is only temporary. He learns to recognize signs of upcoming violent outbursts from his father. When he perceives this “state,” he ducks under the table.

He dived under the table, where experience had taught him was a rather safe place.

Even though the tiny child realizes that his dog cannot survive the fall after being thrown from a window, he wants to reach him right away. As he emitted “a long, dirgelike cry,” the boy “toddled hastily out of the room.” However, he cannot go as fast as he wants to because of his size. Instead, he was “compelled ... to go downstairs backward, one step at a time."