Books | Dog Stories

In a world where brief, virtual (and often forgettable) instant messaging is the norm, it’s a bit of a thrill to check the mailbox and see something other than a bill or pre-approved credit card application. Last month, I received a mystery package, carefully wrapped in brown paper. Surprised, I ran upstairs and greedily tore it open: a book! And not just any book. Literary Dog: Great Contemporary Dog Stories, a supremely thoughtful gift from my friend, Anne, a talented writer herself. (Thank you, AZ!)

Originally published in 1990, it is a collection of short stories meant to showcase great fiction about dogs. Excited to see authors such as Raymond Carver, Tobias Wolff, John Updike and Doris Lessing (and in serious need of a good read), I plunged in, choosing stories at random.

The editor, Jeanne Schinto, warns in her introduction, “Dog lovers, beware!” After reading a few, I realized why: dogs are lost, blamed, shot, and otherwise presented in an unsympathetic light. (Quite different than the cozy cover suggests, by the way.) After finishing a piece in which puppies are purposely drowned in the Ganges to avoid a worse fate on the streets of Delhi, I closed the book. The fiction was superb. Why did reading it feel so uncomfortable?

 

“Dogs are not people dressed up in fur coats, and to deny them their nature is to do them great harm,” Schinto writes. I thought about this for a while. What is a dog’s nature? According to the show, “And Man Created Dog,” the dog is the most varied mammal on the planet, a direct result of selective breeding that began 15,000 years ago. Some dogs are bred to hunt, others to fetch, or herd. Some are just bred to keep us company. We originally chose dogs (or wolves) as companions because they were intrinsically loyal, and used that nature to our own advantage. It seems to me that a modern dog’s nature has almost everything to do with people.

I call myself Chewie’s “mom.” I let her sleep in my bed. I talk to her and kiss her nose. I forgive her for jumping on me with muddy paws. I worry about her when I’m away. Does this mean I treat her like a person? My dog is my family, and I treat her like family. If that makes me a dog lover, then I am proud to be one.

For the purposes of fiction, dogs can be heroes or mongrels. They can be Lassie or Cujo, or a random, nameless dog that drowns in a river. They are a subject, and the author can decide what fate should befall them to achieve the literary effect they desire. But do I love reading about bad dogs? Suffering dogs? Dead dogs? Not really.

My interpretation of a dog’s nature is simple. Dogs are not human, but to deny them a humane existence is to do them great harm.