The characters in “A Full-Service Shelter” by Amy Hempel show that caring for animals’ lives conflicts with the rules of a shelter that prioritizes cost-efficiency. The narrator cares deeply for the dogs, they clean the kennels and hand dry them just to “[reduce] their anxiety by even that much” (Hempel 28). This characterization of their empathy emphasizes that the difficulties of working in a system that does not value the lives they are meant to protect. The shelter is “[f]ull-[s]ervice” (Hempel 27) meaning the workers will provide further services to comfort the dogs until they must be…