A Full Service Shelter by Amy Hempel

Woof, Woof.

Happy new year everyone! 

We are kicking off 2026 with A Full Service Shelter by Amy Hempel that has absolutely nothing to do with celebrating the New Year and is pretty harrowing stuff. The narrator gives us an unflinching, behind-the-scenes look at working in a dog shelter and fair warning: this is not for the faint of heart.

It opens with an epigraph from a Leonard Michaels’s short story called In the Fifties: “They knew me as one who shot reeking crap out of cages with a hose.” What an opening line. I was hooked immediately. I have never even heard of Leonard Michaels before, but if Amy Hempel is tipping her hat to him here, I am inclined to think he might be worth checking out.

That quote becomes the story’s structural launching point. Every sentence begins with “They knew me as one…” or “They knew us as the ones who…,” creating a kind of rhythmic, confessional chant. At first, it’s incredibly effective. Sharp, funny in a bleak way and emotionally direct. However, because it starts out so strong, everything that follows can’t help but feel like diminishing returns.

I can appreciate Hempel’s narrative choice here and what she’s aiming for, but the gimmick wears thin faster than I expected. The repetition starts to feel more constraining than illuminating and I found myself wishing she had loosened the reins a bit and let the story breathe. By the end, I was also unsure what emotional note I was meant to land on: is this story a tribute to the brutal, thankless work of caring for abandoned dogs or a cautionary tale meant to discourage anyone sensible away from the job entirely? Maybe it’s both although the story doesn’t quite make that balance clear.