Books and dogs

    Have a look at So Many Books' post about reading to dogs - what a wonderful idea! I hadn't heard of dogs being used for that form of assistance before but it makes perfect sense, and it has started in this country, too, I discover (see Scotts the greyhound and his young reading companions in this clip).

   As to dogs in books, there are many examples given in the interview/article The Dog and the Novel, one of which is Richard Adams' The Plague Dogs. I took my copy off the shelf to photograph Rowf there on the cover and discovered inside notes my seventeen-year-old self took when The Book Programme featured Adams many years ago (I'd forgotten just how keen I was).

   Do you have any favourite 'literary dogs'? I have to approach books featuring dogs with great care as I can't bear it when they are in danger or come to harm, and the latest version of Lassie (though filmed in my homeland) was all too much for Harriet and me!

Comments

[Dark Puss]

Do cats have a favourite book about a dog? Surely not? Well yes actually and it is Kashtanka by Anton Chekhov.

[Simon S]

I wouldnt say I have any specific favourite dog books myself but I will say that The Dog by Kerstin Eckman was a brilliant tale seen through a dogs eyes in wonderful vividness.

[Mary McCartney]

'Greyfriars Bobby'! My primaryschool teacher read it aloud to us and I sat there with tears streaming down my face. The same thing has happened with every subsequent reading.

[Cornflower]

Oh, poor Bobby!!

[Dark Puss]

I would also nominate White Fang by Jack London if you will allow the dog family rather than purely Canis lupus familiaris. It is a fantastic novel which as well as evoking the harshness of the place, and time, in which it is set raises issues of morality and redemption. I'll warn Cornflower that the wolfdog of the title has a tough time of it.

[Alice C]

My favourite dog-book is Jock of the Bushveld but my favourite dogs-in-books are the Cocker Spaniels that appear in Enid Blyton which is probably why I decided to have one of my own.

[Georgina]

Oh, dear. Late reading this as usual. I recommend 'The truth about dogs' by Volker Kriegel, introduced in the English edition by Julian Barnes, so that possibly gives it more gravitas than it deserves. It's actually a very entertaining cartoon book about the behaviour of dogs and their people. No crying here, unless it's tears of laughter.

[Pebbledash]

Oh that bit about the Lassie film made me smile...I went and saw it with another doggy friend, we were the only two people in the entire cinema, and within ten minutes of the film starting we were howling...and we didn't stop until the film ended.Far too harrowing.