Johannes’s character arc is shaped by the fight for freedom—a battle the protagonist has been fighting all his life. When he was a puppy, he chose to run away from humans so he wouldn’t become a pet like his siblings. He adamantly stands by this decision even though he has to struggle for survival in a way that he wouldn’t if he were a kept dog: “We were hungry but we were free. I still fend and I still scrounge and am still free, have always been free. No one feeds me. I am unkept and free” (13). As Johannes grows older, humans continue to pose a threat to his freedom. The introduction of the thief, Twisty, threatens Johannes’s freedom for the first time and gives him his only experience of captivity. Previously, Johannes “had been a dog, a free dog of limitless propulsive capacity and eyes without obstacle, and now [he] was a thing this man owned. [He] was the fulfillment of some desire he had” (55). In a key moment for the theme, Johannes fights his way to freedom and escapes back to the park with the help of his friends.