Dog World: and the humans who live there - Hardcover

Gingold, Alfred

 
9780767916615: Dog World: and the humans who live there
Hardcover
ISBN 10: 0767916611 ISBN 13: 9780767916615
Verlag: Broadway Books, 2005

Inhaltsangabe

An entertaining odyssey through the obsessive, demanding, and colorful world of contemporary dog owners offers witty observations based on the chronology of dog ownership, from choosing a dog, to the emotional upheaval of training, to dog kitsch and memorabilia, with observations on the history of dog walking, the origins of dog food, scooping poop, and more. 25,000 first printing.

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Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

ALFRED GINGOLD is the author of several humor books, including the bestseller Items from Our Catalogue, a parody of the L.L. Bean catalogue. His articles on dog-related matters and the Westminster Dog Show have been featured on Slate and in The New York Times. Gingold lives in Brooklyn with his family and, of course, their Norwich terrier, George.

Aus dem Klappentext

In the fall of 2001, Alfred Gingold found himself succumbing to the undeniably endearing behavior of his family's new Norwich terrier, George, and becoming a member of what he calls Dog Nation: the 43 million dog owners and their 55 million dogs living in America today. In a matter of weeks, Gingold had become a firsthand ethnographer of the passions (read idiosyncrasies) that define dog owners everywhere. It was literally a case of puppy love.

The result of Gingold's shrewd observation is Dog World, which is structured around the loose chronology of dog ownership: choosing and finding a dog; feeding, walking, and cleaning up after the dog; the literal and emotional obstacle course that is training a dog; and on to the larger cultural realms of dog racing and, of course, dog kitsch and memorabilia. But the real delight of Dog World is in Alfred Gingold's narrative excursions through the canine universe, whereby he reports (and occasionally pontificates) on topics such as the untold history of dog walking, how dog food came to be, the urban art of scooping poop, and an analysis of the relationships great historical figures have had with their dogs.

Like Bill Bryson or Calvin Trillin, Alfred Gingold brings a particularly wry and comic perspective to the world. And whether one is a dog lover or a dog agnostic, Dog World will be a tremendously entertaining journey into mankind's canine love affair.

Auszug. © Genehmigter Nachdruck. Alle Rechte vorbehalten.

1. entering the dog world


Commencement


I loathe people who keep dogs. They are cowards
who haven't got the guts to bite people themselves.
—August Strindberg


I was not a dog person of any kind in the autumn of 2001, when my wife and I went for drinks at a down-at-the-heels but newly cool Brooklyn bar called O'Connor's. Time Out New York had recently cited the place as having the best moose head in the city, a designation that said more about the sorry state of the outer-borough moose head situation than the dubious magnificence of O'Connor's threadbare Bullwinkle. The thing presided over a joint where black-clad, ear-cuffed groovies drank alongside pregentrification habitues. On this night, there were no hipsters in evidence, only a ragged row of regulars slumped on stools in the dim light, staring into their drinks. No camaraderie, no Jell-O shots, no bar food, no pickup action, not even a television: a perfect Dark Bar, just the place for the serious talk we'd gone there to have.

Except for the dogs. What were the damn dogs doing in a bar?

They weren't creating a fuss; the three of them lay on the worn linoleum, taciturn as their masters. I admit I didn't like it. This is Brooklyn, not France, where dogs are permitted in restaurants and intensive care units. Dogs had just never been one of my things, though getting one was exactly what we were there to discuss.

The reason was our son, approaching thirteen and showing all the signs of impending adolescence. I say this knowing that we have been spared the full teen catastrophe. He sported no Mohawk, no piercings or tattoos. He never wafted around the house smelling all herblike. As of this writing, he still doesn't. Believe me, I know how lucky we are.
But there's no denying that our son, like many twelve-year-old boys, found us lacking—in wisdom, in charm, in spirit, in just about anything any reasonable person might expect from parents. I'm not complaining, merely pointing out the psychic challenge our little family faced.

As an only child, our son is all too often the center of both attention and tension. It's an old story, but I hated being an actor in it anyway. Sometimes I'd look at him and his brow would be furrowed with an intensity of worry that stopped me in my tracks. What was bothering him, I wondered, and what could I do about it?

The answer to the first question was everything, of course, and the answer to the second was nothing. And boy, did we share his pain, or at least remember the feeling. My wife and I vowed to help. Pets, we knew, are a time-honored way of providing kids with ready-made love and commitment, soul mates and companions through the uncertainties and agonies of adolescence.

This assumption is one I took on faith, having little experience to go by. My wife shared her early years with assorted fauna, including a cat, a hamster, and Jimmy the Mouse, of whom she still speaks fondly. I grew up in a pet-free home, aside from a goldfish that died within a week and a little alligator we brought home from Miami Beach and soon flushed down the toilet, from whence it and its fellows would inspire generations of urban myths and Thomas Pynchon.

Pets, in the childhood view I carried unsullied into adulthood, were demanding, unpredictable, and unhygienic. This impression was not changed by the succession of half-dollar-size turtles we got for our son. The turtles inexorably grew big as dinner plates, requiring frequent and ever more repulsive tank cleanings. But at least the turtles didn't have to be walked. What could a dog do for our boy that the turtles didn't? I asked. My wife fixed me with a look that suggested she didn't believe my question was entirely sincere. "You can only relate to a turtle so far," she said.

Obviously, helping our son was a good reason to get a dog, but not compared to all the good reasons not to: the walks, the shedding, the poo, for starters. Before I could make my case, though, my wife was distracted by one of the bar dogs, a big brown mutt who'd gotten up to stretch and wandered over to our booth. My wife cooed, "Aren't you pretty?" and petted the creature. Pretty? I smiled gamely in the dog's general direction. Speaking of game, I noticed the dog had a faint odor. This was before I learned that all dogs have a faint odor. (Actually, you're lucky if it's faint. The strange thing is that after a while you get to like it.) My wife petted the dog and the dog leaned into her hand. I noticed a little raw area on the dog's side, almost on her belly. The owner said quietly, "She's got a hot spot. Lying on the floor keeps it cool."

"A hot spot?" I said, apparently a shade too inquisitively, because the man dismounted from his stool and sat down with us. A hot spot, he explained, is an area that a dog rubs and licks until there is an actual break in the skin. Not surprisingly, it is generally considered a sign of stress. "I work at a dot com and I usually bring her in to work with me so that she doesn't have to be home alone all day," the man said. "We've had to lay off a lot of people lately and it's become a pretty sad place. That's when she started this compulsive grooming. They blame themselves, you know. They blame themselves."

Our chat continued. He told us about several of his past dogs and how, though all had been wonderful, none matched this one's sheer compassion for la condition humaine; all right, he didn't actually say anything in French, but he did make the dog sound like Gandhi incarnate. My wife asked questions solicitously. I nodded sympathetically, but the words of Victor Spinetti as the harried exec in A Hard Day's Night thrummed in my mind: "I could've done wonders in vivisection."

Eventually, man and beast went off dolefully into the night and my wife and I resumed our discussion. I was convinced I could never take proper care of a dog, the way that guy did. That guy was obviously a committed dog owner, tender and devoted. Also crazy as a loon. Therefore, I reasoned keenly, only crazy people should have dogs. Not that I claim to be playing with a full bag of clubs myself, only that my particular pathology does not lead me to seek solace with the four-legged. Even though we were still technically discussing the issue, in my heart I believed that the whole dog issue was closed.

You would think experience would teach me not to make rash predictions. But if experience has taught me anything, it is that experience rarely teaches me anything.

So it was that on a spring evening six months later, I was part of a small group milling excitedly around in the dingy basement of a local Catholic school. The instructor checked her watch and nodded to an assistant, who hit the play button on a boom box, uncorking a tinny recording of "Pomp and Circumstance." My son held the leash firmly as certificates were handed out and flashes flashed. It was graduation day at obedience school. I chuckled, I beamed, and, as usual on such occasions, I regretted not having brought my camera.

The peculiar thing about this event was that I was prouder of the dog than of my son. I really shouldn't have been. My son had changed in many ways, all of them good: He'd become more patient and persistent and responsible. He regularly took the dog for his predinner pee walk and sometimes even the morning outing, which usually involves more serious business. He worked on training George every day and assumed the role of family dog whisperer, interpreting the creature's every twitch and snuffle with authority. These important steps on the path to adulthood were exactly what we'd hoped for.

The dog, on the other hand, hadn't changed much at all over the seven-week course that I wouldn't have signed up for at...

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Verlag
Broadway Books
Erscheinungsdatum
2005
Sprache
Englisch
ISBN 10 
0767916611
ISBN 13 
9780767916615
Einband
Gebundene Ausgabe
Auflage
1
Anzahl der Seiten
228
Kontakt zum Hersteller
Nicht verfügbar
Verantwortliche Person
Nicht verfügbar

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