My Friend the Dog

Albert Payson Terhune

Description

Terhune penned many books about the dogs he kept and trained on the Sunnybank estate throughout the 1920s and 30s.
This is a collection of lovely stories about collies and their humans, mostly about canine loyalty, heroism, intelligence, and love.
This early work by Albert Payson Terhune was originally published in 1926, we are now republishing it with a brand new introductory biography.

Sujets

• Animals
• Fiction

Informations

• Publié par: Read Books Ltd.
• Date de parution: 15 avril 2014
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781473393295
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

ALBERT PAYSON TERHUNE
My Friend The Dog
Copyright 2013 Read Books Ltd. This book is copyright and may not be reproduced or copied in any way without the express permission of the publisher in writing
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Albert Payson Terhune
Albert Payson Terhune was born on 21 st December 1872, in New Jersey, United States. Terhune s father was the Reverend Edward Payson Terhune and his mother, Mary Virginia Hawes, was a writer of household management books and pre-Civil War novels under the name Marion Harland. He was one of six children, having four sisters and one brother, but only two of his sisters survived until adulthood. Further tragedy beset the family when his own wife, Lorraine Bryson Terhune, died four days after giving birth to their only child. He later remarried Anice Terhune, but had no more children.
Terhune received a Bachelor of Arts degree from Columbia University in 1893. The following year, he took a job as a reporter at the New York newspaper The Evening World , a position he held for the next twenty years. During this period, he began to publish works of fiction, such as Dr. Dale: A Story Without A Moral (1900), The New Mayor (1907), Caleb Conover, Railroader (1907), and The Fighter (1909). However, it was his short stories about his collie Lad, published in Red Book, Saturday Evening Post, Ladies Home Journal, Hartford Courant , and the Atlantic Monthly , that brought him mainstream success. A dozen of these tales were collected in to novel form and released as Lad: A Dog in 1919. This was a best-seller and in 1962 was adapted into a feature film. He went on to produce over thirty novels focussing on the lives of dogs and enjoyed much success in the genre.
Terhune s interest in canines was by no means restricted to fiction. He became a celebrated dog-breeder, specialising in rough collies, lines of which still exist in the breed today. Sunnybank kennels were the most famous collie kennels in the United States and the estate is now open to the public and known as Terhune Memorial Park. Terhune died on 18 th February 1942 and was buried at the Pompton Reformed Church in Pompton Lakes, New Jersey.
To My Very Dear Friend C YNTHIA D RYDEN K USER
In Memory of Many Happy Hours at Faircourt and at Sunnybank
My Book Is Dedicated
CONTENTS
I.
The Gorgeous Pink Puppy
II.
Runaway
III.
The Feud
IV.
The Destroyer from Nowhere
V.
A Couple of Miracles
VI.
Parsifal, Unlimited
VII.
Ginger!
VIII.
Foster Brethren
IX.
Love Me, Love My Dog
X.
A Glass of Milk
XI.
The Hero-Coward
XII.
Collie!
XIII.
Afterword-The Dogs of Sunnybank
My Friend The Dog
I. The Gorgeous Pink Puppy
BRECK strolled toward the big puppy yard of the Kerwin Collie Kennels, his eyes on the distant masses of leaf-brown fluff sprawling asleep in the shade. His mind as well as his eyes were on these slumbering collie babies. Thus he lent no heed to Kerwin s babble as the kennel owner trudged along beside him.
Yes, sir, Kerwin was saying, I have just what you want. There are eight pups in the yard. All that s left unsold of two of the best litters I ve had this year. You say you want the puppy as a chum for your boy. Well, these pups are fine for chums, and every one of em is a grand show-prospect, besides. They--
Breck was not listening. As he watched the sleeping youngsters, one of them raised its head, the sound of voices and footsteps piercing the sleep mists, the scent of humans waking it wide.
This pup was up and alert for several seconds before its brothers and sisters so much as stirred from their noontide naps. Breck nodded approval. Here was swiftness of the senses, as well as the true watchdog instinct. He looked more keenly at the pup.
The youngster warranted a second glance; not from any outward signs of excellence, but because of its truly remarkable appearance. It was almost a third smaller than the yard s other occupants. Its deep-set eyes were a china blue-betokening merle collie blood no further back than a single generation.
Its coat was an indeterminate blend of red sable with the gray of a merle. The general effect was a dingy pink; as of a badly soiled and faded rose-colored dress. Dark splotches were strewn here and there through the pinkness-another merle heritage-and the whitish muzzle, from eye to nostril, was spattered with tiny black spots, as though it had been sprayed with ink.
Truly an amazing color scheme for a collie; and one which Breck never before had seen.
By this time all eight babies were awake and running toward the wire fence to welcome the two men. But the pink puppy was well in the lead. It moved with a cleanness and steadiness of gait, unusual in a pudgy fourmonther. Still deaf to Kerwin s laudatory prattle, Breck stood looking down at the pups.
Let me watch them a few minutes, here from the outside, he bade the breeder. I ll go in later and examine them.
Presently the puppies ceased to note the unmoving man. Two of them went back to their doze. A third trotted to the feed dish and began to eat greedily. Two more began to play. The pink puppy ran also to the feed dish. But the much larger pup eating there growled threateningly. Undeterred, the pink puppy began to eat.
The larger pup turned and ran at it in clumsy fury. The pink puppy wheeled to meet the attack. Diving, it caught the farther of the other s pudgy forelegs and braced itself. The maneuver threw the larger baby heavily to earth. By the time it touched ground the pink puppy had it by the throat.
Loosening its playful grip as the other scrambled up, the pink puppy lunged warily from behind, wolf fashion, and caught its opponent by the base of the neck. The whole thing was done right deftly and with a keen sureness of instinct. The bigger and clumsier pup was helplessly at the mercy of its pinkish playmate.
Again, Breck nodded approval. Entering the yard, he picked up the war-like baby and ran his eye over it.
I like this one, he said. She has brain and pluck and instinct. She didn t start the squabble, either. But she finished it, to the queen s taste. She s true collie. How much?
For a moment Kerwin gaped in contemptuous amaze. Then he went into action.
You ve sure got a good eye for a dog, my friend, said he. Just at one glance you ve chosen the pick of the two litters. She s the best of the lot, by far. Sired by Sunnybank Gray Dawn; no less. I refused a hundred dollars for her, last week. I was planning to keep her, for the show circuit and as a brood matron. But since you seem to have took such a fancy to her--
Hold on, interposed Breck, very quietly. Let s understand each other, please. You wouldn t dare show this mutt, anywhere; and you know it. You d be laughed out of the ring. You wouldn t dare use her for a brood matron, either. She hasn t a single redeeming point, to a professional breeder like yourself. She is lop-eared. She has blue eyes and dew claws. She is a runt. Her color and her markings are a joke. Besides, she has an incipient rupture. She s too homely to sell as a pet and she isn t worth a nickel as a show dog or a matron. You know that, as well as I do. Those ears of hers will never come up. A blue-eyed sable can never get anywhere in the ring, and not often as a dam of registered stock. She s been a dead loss to you, and you d have drowned her if you hadn t thought you could saw her off on some foolish novice. You never refused a hundred dollars for her or a hundred cents. I ll give you fifteen dollars, cash, for her, here and now. Yes or no?
Kerwin s aspect of wounded dignity gave place to a sheepish grin. He realized he was talking with a man who not only spoke the cryptic language of collie initiates, but who apparently understood the breed from every angle. Yet he made one more try.
Give me twenty, he coaxed, and we ll call it square. Twenty, and I ll throw in a pedigree and a registration blank.
Fifteen, calmly insisted Breck, adding: And you know as well as I do that the American Kennel Club laws compel you to give a correct pedigree and a registration blank, free of charge, with every registered stock dog you sell. Fifteen. It is fourteen more than she is worth to you. But she is worth that to me and to my son.
All right, sighed Kerwin, surrendering.
Here s the cash, went on Breck. And here s the address where her papers can be sent. I m going up into Maine-up close to the border-for the next few months, to settle my father s estate and get his farm in shape to sell. I am taking my wife and my boy with me. It ll be wild country for the kid, away from all his friends. I want this pup as a pal for him. If she turns out the way I think she will, she ll be worth her keep, ten times over, with sheep and cattle, when I come back to my own farm, down in Passaic County. Come along, Pink!
He picked up the puppy again, carrying her under one arm, while he led the way to the battered car in the dooryard. The pink puppy made no protest at being borne away from her kennel mates. She seemed to understand that this man knew and loved dogs, and that she would fare well with him.
Thus it was that Pink journeyed to her new owner s farm, and a week later to the Maine woods. Breck s son, Roland, was enraptured with her from the start. His father s twelve-year-old collie-two years younger than Roland himself-had died a month earlier. The old dog s passing had been a sharp sorrow to the animal-loving boy. He welcomed the puppy with open arms. To him her absurd color was a delight.
I guess there s mighty few dogs as pretty as this one, he bragged as the three Brecks journeyed northward in the battered car, their luggage strapped gypsy-like to its sagging top. I ll bet her mother liked her best of all the litter, because she was the nicest colored and because she--
I don t believe the color had much to do with the way her mother felt about