Lance spied the droppings near the tree. He leaned in to get a closer look. They were small and slender with about a half dozen samples lying in a pile. His nose wrinkled when he got a whiff.
His companion crept up close behind him.
“Why don’t you taste it?” he asked.
Lance stuck out his tongue and gave it a couple of licks. He sat back and rolled his tongue inside his mouth.
“Raccoon.” He leaned and gave it another lick. “Lucky bastard found some pizza, too.”
Rex wagged his tail, a line of drool dripped off of his panting tongue.
“Pizza! Dog, I would bite a little girl for slice of two-day old pizza about now. Pizza and a bowl of milk to wash it down.”

[This message has been edited by snapper (edited February 17, 2008).]
 

That said:

quote:

---

Lance spied the droppings near the tree. He leaned in to get a closer look. They were small and slender with about a half dozen samples lying in a pile. His nose wrinkled when he got a whiff.(I think you should be cluing me in that they are dogs in this first paragraph)
His companion (who? -- this is when you should name the companion assuming he knows the name)crept up close behind him.
“Why don’t you taste it?” he asked. gross
Lance (stuck out his tongue and--redundant) gave it a couple of licks. He sat back and rolled his tongue inside his mouth.
“Raccoon.” He leaned and gave it another lick. “Lucky bastard found some pizza, too.”
Rex wagged his tail, a line of drool dripped off (of-cut) his (panting--sentence to busy with this) tongue.
“Pizza! Dog, I would bite a little girl for slice of two-day old pizza about now. Pizza and a bowl of milk to wash it down.”

---

Can't say I am grabbed by it. Talking dogs--talking about raccoon **** has no promise of conflict. The dogs themselves are pretty disgusting--my dog sniffs **** but never licks it. The promise seems to be in the banter between the dogs. In terms of the 13 lines I would probably be continuing to read and hoping it was going to move firmly away from a disney-dog story lines.

[This message has been edited by skadder (edited February 17, 2008).]
 

Aside from that, I like how you delay revealing the MC is a dog for just a moment, that was well done and a good way of lulling the reader into the story. But apart from that, I might give it a couple more lines, but my interest was already beginning to wane at the end of the 13, a couple of dogs and some racoon poo--I want more pretty sharpish to keep me reading.

A couple of nits:

His companion crept up close behind him. You reveal the name just a couple of lines down so I din't really understand the delay, also "companion" sounds a little too formal.

“Why don’t you taste it?” he asked. As I read this, coming so soon as it does after the mention of his companion, I was unsure who was saying this.

panting tongue. dogs pant, tongues don't.

Good luck with it and let us know when it's ready for readers
 

I visualized a human leaning down and licking...yeah. :/

I'd really like to see it quickly established that these are not humans. Anthropomorphization is difficult to pull off successfully...right now it reads a little too much like humans on all fours. I think you can dig deeper into the sensory experiences of these animals and convey something that's both alien enough to pique curiosity but familiar enough that the reader can relate to the inhuman characters.

That, or a bigger sense of conflict in the opening lines to carry it through.
 

You seem to fallen to saidism syndrome

I am careful to avoid those bookism, however, does that rule apply to 'asked'? Wouldn't 'said' be wrong if the sentence is a question? I thought 'asked' is on a equal footing with 'said' in that instance.

I got the idea of this story from that History channel program on what the world would be like without people. With that in mind here are my new 13 lines.

Lance spied the droppings near the tree. He leaned in to get a closer look. They were small and slender with about a half dozen samples lying in a pile. His nose wrinkled when he got a whiff.
His friend crept up behind him. “Why don’t you taste it?”
Lance stuck out his tongue and gave it a couple of licks. He sat back and rolled his tongue inside his mouth.
“Raccoon.” He bent over and gave it another lick. “Lucky bastard found some pizza, too.”
Rex wagged his tail, a line of drool streamed down his tongue.
“Pizza! Dog, I would bite a little girl for slice of two-day old pizza about now. Pizza and a bowl of milk to wash it down.”
Lance slurped his tongue over his whiskers. “Dog, I haven’t tasted milk since I nursed from my bitch.”

[This message has been edited by snapper (edited February 17, 2008).]
 

If the former, then it's not much of a shock. It's just confusing to withhold the info. If the latter, then, yes, humans engaged in that activity is more shocking than dogs doing same. However, BOTH are repellent, not enticing. If that's the shock factor expected to "draw the reader in" it isn't going to work, except for a small minority. For that group, you don't want to write a humorous story (or at least not one OTHER people would consider humorous), but a gross-out story. If that's not your intent, then don't gross us out.

You're still avoiding using Rex's name the first time you refer to him. "His friend" is a bit more informative than "his companion", but "Rex" is far, far better.

Also, if this is supposed to be a world without humans, then where does pizza come from? What is Rex talking about when his says, "Dog, I would bite a little girl . . . ."? Okay, you said you got the idea from that History channel program. Supposedly there are a few humans left. But you make it clear that this situation has been around for some time now. I think pizza would be one of the first foods to go in any kind of cataclysm that would get rid of most of the people. And if these dogs are wild, then biting humans would probably not be high on their list of no-no's.

Using "asked" is fine, although if the speaker attribution is given before the question, "said" is probably at least as good.

[This message has been edited by rickfisher (edited February 18, 2008).]
 

You might consider swapping verbs that seem less human and more canine-ly ei. leaned/ bowed head. I have seen dogs lean, but the usually just lower their heads to check stuff out.

[This message has been edited by Bent Tree (edited February 22, 2008).]