Great story.
I thought I'd seen the ending coming from a mile away but I was wrong.
The descriptions confused me while I was reading. I didn't know where they were or what the setting was. When they talk about God and towers, I immediately thought about vets and buildings. I was partially right. When the name Laika popped up I became even more confused: Laika is the female mongrel sent to die in space by the soviets, so I thought about many things. Are they in the Soviet Union? But wait, Laika was found in the streets of Moscow!
When they were taken to the facility I thought, "Obviously." But... The crew began talking about something wrong with the pups' paws, about AI, about evacuation... Then I understood that this was a post-apocalyptic story, and that they were rescued by a robot.
It's not the kind of story that explains everything like you're a 2-year-old, but it trusts the intelligence of the reader. It doesn't insult the audience. And that's how every story should be. Readers are not as imbecile as writers often think they are.
I interpret the "telling" as the motherly instinct.
Every story is about humans, even those with nonhuman main characters. And the message of this story is as clear as daylight. Show it to your mom.
This is an 8,5/10.