Greetings, all,

I am looking for a certain short story by Mr. Bradbury that I read once, in middle school. The story of a completely automated house, it mentions there are shadows on the wall, alluding to the fact that a nuclear war took place, wiping humanity (or at least those in the house) out.

I specifically remember (and can vividly recreate in my imagination) a small passage I think I recall from the book, of the autopmated ovens cooking a roasted turkey dinner, setting it out on the table. A hungry, lonely family pet, practically skin and bones, enters through the dog hatch and tries to reach for the food, but is unable to (the dog food dispenser having emptied long ago, I think I recall), and then the wasted food all just thrown away, automatically.

Can anyone help me find this story, please? I would greatly appreciate it; I'd love to share this story with my nephew, who's now getting into Bradbury himself.

"There Will Come Soft Rains" - an allusion to the poem (c.1920 & 1948) by Sara Teasdale. Story is in The Martian Chronicles.

Fireman, good for your nephew! I gave my nephew a copy of The Stories of Ray Bradbury. When I visited him in NYC a year ago, he had a gift for me, An Illustrated Life: R. Bradbury, Weist! Nice -- pass it on!

"And Spring herself, when she woke at dawn
Would scarcely know that we were gone".

I always loved the robot mice in that story for some reason.

"There Will Come Soft Rains" is right, but it wasn't a turkey:

"[the dog] sniffed the air and scratched the kitchen door. Behind the door, the stove was making pancakes which filled the house with a rich odor and the scent of maple syrup.
The dog frothed at the mouth, lying at the door, sniffing, its eyes turned to fire. It ran wildly in circles, biting at its tail, spun in a frenzy, and died. It lay in the parlor for an hour.
Two 'clock, sang a voice.
Delicately sensing decay at last, the regiments of mice hummed out as softly as blown gray leaves in an electrical wind.
Two-fifteen.
The dog was gone.
In the cellar, the incinerator glowed suddenly and a whirl of sparks leaped up the chimney..."

Got your mice in there, too, Botster!

I read a story by Ray similar to that but there was no pet. The house was just doing every thing automatically

"The Veldt" in Illustrated Man.