May 1, 1998 |the read dog
While I wait for a real dog, I read about dogs. In part, this is a natural phase of developing an interest. At least, it is for me. For example, I have a gardening library that started with wish books, grew to include reference works, and has now branched out into specialty books (winter gardens, etc.). My dog library is similar. It started with gorgeously photographed catalogues of breeds that allowed me to learn the difference between the various dog groups (hounds versus herding dogs, non-sporting dogs versus toys, and so on). If you've gardened, it's a little like understanding how herbaceous perennials differ from woody plants. And it presents some of the same weirdly broad categories. For instance, rhododendrons are a little like terriers. Nobody can hope to understand all of them, or at least that's how it seems to me. Also, learning the different body styles associated with the different breeds is not unlike learning to recognize plants by their leaves, color, and form. In both cases, it takes a lot of repetition.
      But I digress. I was explaining how my library developed. The encyclopedias were the first category to arrive; my favorite is still Legacy of the Dog, by the great Japanese dog photographer Tetsu Yamazaki (Chronicle Books, 1993). The Iceland sheepdog he shows on page 100 may be the most beautiful dog I've ever seen.
      From there, I went on to "useful" books. I bought How to Be Your Dog's Best Friend (Little, Brown & Company, 1978) and The Art of Raising a Puppy (Little, Brown & Company, 1991), both by the monks of New Skete. From them I learned about the importance of consistency in dog training, and some basics of temperament testing. (More recently, the monks released a set of videotapes, which my husband bought for me. The tapes are beautiful, and so is the monastery. They suggest, though, that the monks believe there is a significant difference in spiritual importance between dogs and people. I grow less certain about such distinctions as time goes on.)
      The best book in the "useful" category that I've ever seen is a not-very-elegant yet truly profound trade paperback called Just Say "Good Dog": Teaching the Family Dog. Author Linda Goodman, who wrote the book with Marlene Trunnell, is a trainer and takes the positive-reinforcement approach that I talked about last month. This is the book that introduced me to the idea of positive reinforcement and showed how it works in daily life with a dog, using a sort of Gary Larsenish approach (remember "What You Say… What Dogs Hear"?). It's so simple and funny and encouraging that it made me wish everybody in the world who owned a dog would read it. It was published in 1993 and is distributed to the pet trade by T.F.H. Publications, Inc., One T.F.H. Plaza, Nepture City, New Jersey 07753, and to the book and library trade by National Book Network, Inc., 4720 Boston Way, Lanham, Maryland 20706. Write to one of these distributors and ask for the book. It's homely-looking yet brilliant. It made me feel capable of taking care of a dog without screwing up.
      From "useful" books, I went on to "miscellaneous learning" books. Mark Derr's recent book Dog's Best Friend: Annals of the Dog-Human Relationship (Henry Holt and Company, 1997) was one of the most interesting. Derr wrote about breeding excesses for The Atlantic Monthly in 1990, and is a tremendous reporter, with no patience for "dog people" who breed for beauty at the expense of dogs' health and temperament. Dog's Best Friend looks at how dogs and people have interacted over hundreds of years (that is to say, how people have treated dogs and what they wanted out of them) and, despite occasional slow patches, it's extraordinarily revealing, in the way that a close examination of history always makes the present much more understandable. There are horrifying sections about the use of dogs in wars, and equally horrifying material about how dogs are bred and treated now. The basic point Derr makes is that dogs really do not exist in nature. What nature made were wolves; dogs were, and are, made by people. Thus the importance of the choices we make.
      Derr got into a bit of a pissing match, you should forgive the expression, with the author of another of my recent favorites, Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson, whose Dogs Never Lie About Love: Reflections on the Emotional World of Dogs (Crown Publishers, Inc.) also came out last year. (Yes, this is the same Jeffrey Masson who sued writer Janet Malcolm.) This book is a weeper, with horrible accounts of human atrocities against dogs, such as the explanation of how the philosopher Rene Descartes dissected dogs while they were still alive (this part might help you understand how U.S. astronauts can be cutting into the legs of rats currently in orbit). It also contains many wonderfully vivid accounts of dogs' emotional behavior. During his public squabble with Derr, Masson basically said Derr was cold, while Derr accused Masson of sentimentality. My advice, having read both, is this: read both.
      Finally, there is the literary category, which is as big as all outdoors. Some of my favorites, not in any particular order:
      Dogs and Their Women, by Barbara Cohen and Louise Taylor (Little, Brown & Company, 1989). This is a charming paperback picture book filled with wonderful stories of life between dogs and women. They range from the tale of Dorothy Eustis, founder of The Seeing Eye®, to that of a woman named Paula, who saved a half-wild dog from dying in a ditch in the Southwest. The love between these dogs and their bipeds is soulfully evident and genuinely inspiring.
      A Search For the Perfect Dog, by Gary Shiebler (Broadway Books, 1997). The author of this book worked in a shelter, and much of the material is about his experiences there. It also is about his desire to replace a wonderful childhood dog, and what he learned about himself and dogs in the process. It's a little sentimental, but still an interesting read about how the present is often perfect, despite what we think at the time.
      My Dog Tulip, by J. R. Ackerley (Poseidon Press, 1965). This is possibly the best dog memoir of all time (Christopher Isherwood called it "one of the greatest masterpieces of animal literature"). The story of a German shepherd dog named Tulip and her bachelor male owner, it reveals a time when dogs were not automatically neutered, and what happened as a result of that cultural norm, so different from the one prevailing now. The drive to reproduce is not all that is captured in this incredible book. In the chapter on "Liquids and Solids," Ackerly writes about Tulip's fruitless attempts to let him know she needed to go out, and the inevitable ensuing mess: "My pretty animal, my friend, who reposed in me a loving confidence that was absolute, had spoken to me as plainly as she could. She had used every device that lay in her poor brute's power to tell me something, and I had not understood." If you love good writing, find this book and buy it.
      Dog Music: Poetry About Dogs, edited by Joseph Duemer and Jim Simmerman (St. Martin's Press, 1996). You would think dog poems would be happy poems, but this may actually be the saddest collection ever pulled together. Dogs, because of their spontaneity and the deep connection they have with people, seem to bring out in poets the sense of life's fleeting nature. No matter. The poetry is wonderful even if it is poignant (my favorite: "How to Like It," by Stephen Dobyns), and the book benefited from the renaissance in book design we seem to be experiencing; check out how the page numbers are done, if you don't believe me.
      Roger Caras' Treasury of Great Dog Stories (Galahad Books, 1987). This is the sort of book you find on remainder tables. At least, I found my copy there, and I'm glad it happened. A lot of the stories are very dated American pieces — stories from Field & Stream in the fifties, that sort of thing. But they're incredibly well chosen and all interesting. I'm reading my way through this one slowly, from back to front; I want every story to be a surprise. Two of the ones I enjoyed most are "Broken Treaty," by Dion Henderson, a sparely written tale of a dog who dies for a very unexpected reason, and "That Spot," Jack London's comical piece about a dog who wouldn't go away. But, despite the stories from luminaries like Stephen Crane, Ivan Turgenev, D. H. Lawrence, and R. K. Narayan, my favorites so far are actually "The Faithful," by Lester del Rey, and "Dog Star," by Arthur C. Clarke. You didn't know science fiction writers wrote about dogs, did you? Well, now you do.
      And speaking of science fiction, the best novel about dogs I think I've ever read is Kirsten Bakis's Lives of the Monster Dogs (Farrar Straus Giroux, 1997), which is a sort of Frankenstein story involving dogs. A mad European scientist creates a race of dogs who walk upright, have hands, and speak. Eventually, the dogs kill their human captors and come to New York City, where they become celebrities. It's all quite improbable, but the writing is haunting, and so is the character of Ludwig, one of the dogs. I wept when I read this book, and I don't even cry at the opera. Note for literary detectives: for an eerie precursor to Bakis's novel, read the aforementioned "The Faithful," first published in 1938, in Caras's collection.
      So there you have it: a completely subjective, ideosyncratic dog library. I would, of course, trade it all in a heartbeat for a real dog. Fortunately, though, I won't have to. All I'll have to do is remember what I've learned from all these books, while appreciating the dog reality that has inspired so many writers. I can't promise to be able to do the former, at least not without some remedial research; but as to the latter… how could I not?

Next time: dog bytes