Jim and George for obvious reasons were unable to have their own children; however they did own two dogs that where most likely thought of as children to these two partners. From the opening scene where we see one dog lying dead next to Jim, to the phone call that George receives informing him that his lover Jim has died in a car crash and Georges question to the man informing him of this horrible news is if the dogs had survived or not. I don’t feel at all like George was more worried about the dogs just simply that they were as much a part of his and Jim’s family as kids of their own would be have been. These dogs were George and Jim’s children and had they survived they could have saved George from the deep depression he fell into after Jim’s death. For me they were used in the film to signify that after the death of Jim, George was truly alone. We learn from the opening scene how painful it is for George to awake in the morning, awake without his longtime partner beside him, awake without two dogs jumping on his bed and letting him know they want to be taken out. There was a reason these dogs were in the film and why George reflects on Jim asking him if he can take the dogs on the trip that would take his and their lives. They were used to truly drive the point across that humans cannot live alone as George had been doing after the accident. If the dogs are a symbol of a lack of interaction between others for George and what keeps him depressed, then Kenny would be the opposite, Kenny represents the fact that humans need to share their lives with others and it’s Georges interaction with Kenny that pulls him out of his depression and suicidal thoughts and onto the revelation that life goes on and is worth living.
There's a moment in learning about the death of Jim and his dogs in which he asks, or expects to be told, when and where the funeral would be held. And of course, the voice on the other end (who I am certain was Jon Hamm, a distracting surprise) tells him that would not be such a good idea to come to. Now, George was given signs throughout the conversation that there would be no funeral for him to attend, no final ceremony for him to say goodbye as an equal, but in the moment of hearing the news, he forgets and adds to his sorrows, besides the death of his lover and of his pseudo children, the rejection of being accepted by his lover's family as just that. Earlier he is told that the voice on the other end called because he felt that George should know, but that he was told not to, and that no one even knew he was calling. I felt that to be an added sting, and further proof that George was isolated from society, that he wasn't even allowed to grieve as an equal with everyone else.
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