In Dogs We Trust

Description

A grand anthology that celebrates the many sterling virtues of the canine species

Dogs have lived with humans for thousands of years as working partners. By the nineteenth century their role expanded to companions. American dog literature reflects this gradual but dramatic shift that continues even today. Our household dogs are quite literally closer than ever to us: sleeping in our beds, getting dressed in Halloween costumes, and serving as emotional support companions.

In Dogs We Trust is the first comprehensive anthology of American dog literature. It features stories, anecdotes, and poetry that celebrate the many sterling virtues of the canine species. By mining the vast American literary archive of nineteenth and early twentieth-century periodicals, Jacob F. Rivers III and Jeffrey Makala reveal the mystique and magic of the human-canine relationship and what they believe is one of the best connections humans have to the mysteries of the natural world.

This grand anthology features a rich harvest of fiction and nonfiction in which the canine heroes and heroines think and act in ways that illuminate their unquestioning loyalty and devotion. By taking dog literature seriously, Rivers and Makala believe we can learn more about our animal companions, ourselves, and our national literature. For them dog literature is American literature; it helps us explore and explain who we are and who we wish to be.

Sujets

• Comparative Literature
• Literary Criticism
• Bay dog
• Shepherd dog
• Love That Dog
• A Dog's Tale
• Two Dogs
• Dog behavior
• Pretty Face
• Beautiful Joe
• Dog training
• Companion dog
• Show dog
• Lap dog
• Therapy dog
• St. Bernard (dog)
• Poodle
• Herding dog
• Dog breeding
• Sled dog
• Dog breed

Informations

• Publié par: University of South Carolina Press
• Date de parution: 17 mai 2019
• Nombre de lectures: 1
• EAN13: 9781611179675
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 2 Mo

Extrait

In Dogs We Trust
In Dogs We Trust
An Anthology of American Dog Literature
EDITED BY
Jacob F. Rivers III and Jeffrey Makala
2019 University of South Carolina
Published by the University of South Carolina Press
Columbia, South Carolina 29208
www.sc.edu/uscpress
28 27 26 25 24 23 22 21 20 19
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data can be found at http://catalog.loc.gov/
ISBN 978-1-61117-966-8 (cloth)
ISBN 978-1-61117-967-5 (ebook)
To Murray and Maggie, the best terriers in the world
As for love, a dog s love is more honest and unsullied, more faithful and true, than any other in this weary old world. A man may sink into the gutter and kill the affections of all who are nearest him, but his dog will cling to him through all.
Alexander Hunter, The Huntsman in the South , 1908
CONTENTS
List of Illustrations
Acknowledgments
Introduction: Celebrating the American Dog
PART 1
Working Dogs
Heroes of Fire and Water: I.- Sport, the Newark Fire Dog (1881)
Heroes of Fire and Water: II.- Gunner, the Children s Rescuer (1881)
The Cow-Boys and the Dogs, in the War of the Revolution (1865)
The Faithful American Dog (1798)
Sagacity of a Dog (1831)
A Canine Anecdote (1861)
C. J. ATKINSON
Pershing Honors Dog Mascot of A.E.F. (1921)
Another Dog (1895)
F. HOPKINSON SMITH
Craig, an Appreciation (1916)
C.A.D.
A Pleasant Instance of the Sagacity of a Dog (1781)
ABRAHAM WEATHERWISE
The Shepherd s Dog (1845)
J. S. SKINNER
When Eyes Were No Use (1920)
ALBERT PAYSON TERHUNE
The Bar Sinister (1902)
RICHARD HARDING DAVIS
That Spot (1908)
JACK LONDON
PART 2
Sporting Dogs
The Setter, an Aristocrat among Dogs (1920)
ROBERT S. LEMMON
Memoir of a Celebrated Setter Dog (1831)
Dog Knew a Sportsman (1906)
That First Bird Dog (1913)
FRED O. COPELAND
A Lesson in Faithfulness (1919)
A. A. HUTTON
A Walt Whitman Grouse (1916)
ARCHIBALD RUTLEDGE
Sportsmen s Dogs-the Setters (1897)
ED. W. SANDYS
Mac: The Story of a Dog of Honor (1920)
TRAVERS D. CARMAN
Some Dogs That I Have Owned (1901)
W. C. CLARKE
Do Dogs Dream? (1882)
C.B.A.
The Working Airedale in Colorado (1910)
B. F. SIMONDS
About a Setter Dog (1902)
B.L.S.
PART 3
Poetry about Dogs
Epitaph on a Dog (1773)
A Dog (1934)
EDGAR A. GUEST
Dan (1921)
CARL SANDBURG
The Fate of an Innocent Dog (1845)
GEORGE MOSES HORTON
What shall I do - it whimpers so (ca. 1861)
EMILY DICKINSON
Elegy on the Death of Fidelio, a Dog Who Possessed More Merits Than the Poet Has Deigned to Ascribe to Him (1795)
ZEDA
Tumbler s Epitaph (ca. 1840)
An Untitled Poem about Sailor (1845)
J. S. SKINNER
The Dog Star Pup (1920)
HENRY HERBERT KNIBBS
My Dog (1918)
F. C. MCCARTHY
To My Dog, Quien Sabe (In the Happy Hunting Grounds) (1920)
HENRY HERBERT KNIBBS
Sonnet for My Dog (ca. 1939)
THOMAS CURTIS CLARK
My Dog (1897)
CLARENCE HAWKES
The Good, True Dog (1913)
C. A. FONERDEN
To a Dog s Memory (1889)
LOUISE IMOGEN GUINEY
PART 4
Companion Dogs
The Animal Mind (1913)
JOHN BURROUGHS
From The History of New England from 1630 to 1649 (1644)
JOHN WINTHROP
From the Journals of the Lewis and Clark Expedition (1805)
MERIWETHER LEWIS
Stickeen (1909)
JOHN MUIR
Testimony of James Smith, Field Hand, Enslaved in Virginia and Georgia. Interviewed by Henry Bibb (1852)
A Yellow Dog: A California Story (1895)
BRET HARTE
A Dog s Ghost: A Story from the Tobique River, New Brunswick (1892)
GEOFF
Memoirs of a Yellow Dog (1906)
O. HENRY
A Dog s Story (1898)
H. A. FREEMAN
From Our Dogs (1867)
HARRIET BEECHER STOWE
My Dog (A Hamlet in Old Hampshire) (1901)
ANNA LEA MERRITT
Thoughts on Dogs (1793)
WILLIAM LIVINGSTON
In Praise of Mops (1892)
Dogs (1829)
CATHARINE MARIA SEDGWICK
The Fidelity of a Dog (1903)
CY WARMAN
One Minute Longer (1919)
ALBERT PAYSON TERHUNE
The Education of Sam (1900)
CHARLES DUDLEY WARNER
The Reform of Shaun (1903)
ALLEN FRENCH
Where Is My Dog? or, Is Man Alone Immortal? (1892)
THE REVEREND CHARLES JOSIAH ADAMS
Gulliver the Great (1912)
WALTER A. DYER
Coda: All the Good Dogs (1954)
GEORGE AND HELEN PAPASHVILY
Index
ILLUSTRATIONS
Wood engraving showing representative dog breeds, 1880
Stubby in a 1921 veteran s parade
New England Kennel Club poster, 1890
Setter indicating a woodcock, 1887
A prize pointer on point, 1887
Daguerreotype of a dog, ca. 1855
A somewhat nonplussed terrier, 1887
Illustration to accompany a crochet pattern for a greyhound, 1873
Pillow pattern, Godey s Lady s Book , 1861
Barking at the moon, 1887
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
We would like to thank Patrick Scott, who first helped Jacob to formulate a definite idea for a project of this scope. Sharon Verba in Thomas Cooper Library at the University of South Carolina provided invaluable research assistance in identifying and locating long out-of-print paper-based sources and reference material. The Research and Professional Growth Committee of the faculty of Furman University provided research support at the time when it was most needed. Mark Perry at Furman helped us over one summer to identify sources. Elaina Griffith and the interlibrary loan staff of the Furman University Library were invaluable in their dogged (sorry!) work in tracking down obscure source material and delivering them to us. Jeffrey s colleagues at Furman have been models of support and encouragement, especially as he talked endlessly about dog stories with them. Thomas Hendrickson assisted with the translation of the epigraph to Governor William Livingston s Thoughts on Dogs. The faculty and staff of the Special Collections Research Center at the College of William and Mary, home of the outstanding Chapin-Horowitz Collection of Cynogetica, provided important assistance.
Melissa Edmundson Makala, is, as always, a paragon of patience, support, and encouragement and a keen copy editor. And finally Roxie, Dixie, Peaches, Queen, Red, Torri, Buck, Joe, and all the other good dogs out there we have known and loved deserve our continual gratitude for their companionship, insight, assistance, and the necessary sense of perspective they have added to most aspects of our lives.
INTRODUCTION
Celebrating the American Dog
And also they [the Aztec] caused him to carry a little dog, a yellow one; they fixed about its neck a loose cotton cord. It was said that [the dog] bore [the dead one] across the place of the nine rivers in the place of the dead .
And this, it was said, came to Mictlan tecutli. And when the four years had ended, thereupon [the dead one] went to the nine lands of the dead, [where] lay a broad river.
There the dogs carried one across. It was said that whosoever came walking [to the bank] looked over to the dogs. And when one recognized his master, thereupon he came to throw himself into the water in order to carry his master across. Hence the natives took pains to keep the dogs.
Fray Bernardino de Sahag n, General History of the Things of New Spain , ca. 1575-77
Humans have spent millennia domesticating, selectively breeding, and using dogs for work, defense, hunting, and other forms of useful labor. European dogs made their way to the North American colonies of Spain, France, and Great Britain from their very first settlements. These dogs were workers, performing the same jobs they did in the Old World in rural and urban settings. Indigenous North American dogs, the domesticated companions and partners of Native Americans for millennia, feature prominently in their cosmography, religion, and mythology. In one of John White s watercolors (the first images made by Europeans in the New World), a dog is featured among the villagers in a view of the Indian village of Pomeiooc, near the Roanoke Colony. European settlers in the New World often erroneously equated Native Americans companion dogs as little more than wolves, mostly wild animals loosely connected to (mostly) wild people. But different tribes used their companion dogs as sled pullers, hunting companions, and vermin killers, the same functions dogs performed for humans in other parts of the world. *
In the nineteenth-century United States, several factors altered humans relations with their household dogs and other animal companions: changing notions of domesticity; the rise of a relatively affluent middle class; and greater migration from rural to urban areas, all of which helped to influence and create new social relationships between humans and dogs. Later in the nineteenth century, the separate category of pet emerged and became widespread: a pet was a household animal whose purpose was solely to provide companionship and amusement for its owners instead of purposeful labor, most often within a domestic environment. *
At the same time, a significant interest in dog breeding, breed standards, and competitions in the form of dog shows became extremely popular in America. The emphasis on celebrating the purity of breeds and bloodlines among breeders and bench show competitors echoes nativist anxiety about an increasingly multiethnic