Note that a lot of the people have situations they don't like but that they don't really have the power to fix: the beauty queen, the kid with a crutch, the Indian chief, the wife who never wanted to be a wife, the witches (maybe also the postman). And, though the white-tooth man has problems of his own (he got cut up, the town ain't the same, his dog ran away) and even though he can't really fix his problems either, he's found another way out: doing whatever the hell he wants anyway. The comments to this point have been right on in pointing out the implications of this.
I think dogs in this album are supposed to represent (some of?) the highest ideals we can aspire to: loyalty, self-sacrifice, courage, honesty (insofar as dogs have the opportunity to be honest), so their presence serves as a foil to the way that the people in these songs act - irresponsibly, violently, arrogantly, and, especially in this song, wantonly. Dogs are also very child-like in a way because they've become so dependent on humans for their survival, so the instances of dogs suffering are (at least partly) indictments of the way we act towards the ones who treat us best and who need us most.
Note that a lot of the people have situations they don't like but that they don't really have the power to fix: the beauty queen, the kid with a crutch, the Indian chief, the wife who never wanted to be a wife, the witches (maybe also the postman). And, though the white-tooth man has problems of his own (he got cut up, the town ain't the same, his dog ran away) and even though he can't really fix his problems either, he's found another way out: doing whatever the hell he wants anyway. The comments to this point have been right on in pointing out the implications of this.
I think dogs in this album are supposed to represent (some of?) the highest ideals we can aspire to: loyalty, self-sacrifice, courage, honesty (insofar as dogs have the opportunity to be honest), so their presence serves as a foil to the way that the people in these songs act - irresponsibly, violently, arrogantly, and, especially in this song, wantonly. Dogs are also very child-like in a way because they've become so dependent on humans for their survival, so the instances of dogs suffering are (at least partly) indictments of the way we act towards the ones who treat us best and who need us most.