P3: Candy's Dog

In Of Mice and Men in part three we learned a lot about what Candy's dog symbolizes. Once Carlson mentioned shooting Candy's dog it made Candy realize that he and his dog are growing old and not much help to anyone anymore, basically they are just a waste of space. Candy's dog symbolizes how useless Candy and his dog are at the ranch and how old they are getting. Candy lost his hand and has to be a swamper, and his dog, "got no teeth...all stiff with rheumatism" (Steinbeck 44). This means that Candy can't work hard anymore and his dog can barely move and eat. I think Carlson wanted to shoot Candy's dog because he smelled bad for one and he might have thought that getting rid of Candy's dog will get rid of Candy too. I think candy eventually agreed to shoot his dog because he realized he couldn't fight to save his dog. I think that later in the book Candy might get killed because his dog was. His dog was also symbolizing Candy's uselessness, so the people on the ranch might try to get rid of him like they did his dog.