At david lurie's feet, the crippled dog Driepoot “sits up, cocks its head, listens” to the sound of the banjo, and in response to Lurie's humming voice “smacks its lips and seems on the point of singing too, or howling” (Disgrace, 215). Earlier, Lurie has asked himself: “Why pretend to be a chum when in fact one is a murderer?” (143), and yet at the end of the novel, bearing the crippled dog in his arms, “giving it what he no longer has difficulty in calling by its proper name: love” (219), Lurie escorts Driepoot to annihilation. As Driepoot's “period of grace is almost over; soon it will have to submit to the needle” (215), there seems to be no other choice for Lurie but to relieve Driepoot of the suffering he'll surely endure as a homeless, crippled animal in a township teeming with neglected dogs. But, perhaps, Lurie hastens the end of Driepoot's period of grace, refusing to “save the young dog … for another week” (219).