Cuckle burr honey: A thought trail

My novel's narrator is a philosophy instructor at a Southern university, who realizes that the rejection of supernaturalism that he's embraced both in person and in the classroom, also inescapably implies that human beings do not have Free Will. Facing this undermines the narrator's ability to believe in teaching anymore; and thus unfolds the story of his emptying of his bag of tricks in the classroom, to fill the days while his mind roams thru his past, remembering his rural childhood, his escape from Christianity, and his finding of philosophy. This thought trail is guided by the narrator's realization that the foundation for his life has always been his dogs --- his dogs are his moral core, his guides, though they have cuckle burrs in their fur.