Book Review/A Prince among Dogs
A Prince among Dogs
and other stories of the Dogs We Love
Edited by Callie Smith Grant
Revell Publishers
Paperback $12.99
By BILL DUNCAN
The News-Review
I still have in my photographic memory a journalism professor saying a half century ago that anytime a reporter wrote a story involving a dog it would have instant reader appeal. Callie Smith Grant’s collection of dog stories proves that old journalist’s saw.
It may be why Robert Louis Stevenson wrote these lines:
"You think dogs will not be in heaven? I tell you, they will be there long before any of us."
Grant got her title from a story by an Oregon writer, Melody Carlson who lives in Eastern Oregon and is the author of more than 200 books for teens, adults and children, including her recent holiday book, "An Irish Christmas." Carlson wrote about how her family accidentally came to have a scraggly little black mutt with the unlikely name of Prince, and how Prince came to live up to his name.
It is the lead story in a collection of 28 different dog stories edited by Grant who includes several of her own stories.
Not surprisingly, there is a story in the book written by Glide author, Bonnie Leon, titled "The Shepherd." It is a delightful yarn about how a wriggling puppy won the hearts of her family on first sight, even though he is the opposite of the ideal dog had envisioned when the family went to pick from a litter of puppies.
She wrote that before she agreed to adopt a pet, "it would have to be female, couldn’t be too large and must not be overly rambunctious." She said she gave in when her son Paul immediately bonded with a white puppy.
"We knew he belonged with us," she wrote. "Yes, he was the biggest of the pups, and yes, he was male, and yes, he had more energy than any self-respecting dog ought to have, but … he belonged to us. This fluffy white bundle — who looked very much like a polar bear cub — and the Leon family were a match."
Leon, in her story telling genius weaves a heart rending tale of how Benny attached himself to "our hearts and to one heart in particular: our son Paul." Leon describes Ben as being part Labrador and part Kuvasz, a Belgian breed used to guard sheep. "A Kuvasz lives among the flock. He does not bully them or herd them. He simply guards, protecting the sheep from predators."
That’s what Ben did for her family, Leon said. "I know he was always on duty and our family remained safe through the years. Some may say he was ‘just’ a dog. To us, he was more. He was family…a perfect picture of love, honor and courage."
Two other Northwest writers stories are in this book among a cross-section of writers from all parts of the nation. The book is full of stories of love affairs between mankind and the canine. Grant writes in her introduction that we’ve had this love affair with our dogs for thousands of years. Collecting the stories, she said, "made me remember all the dogs of my life. Sometimes they made me laugh, often they made me cry, and since I tend to read in coffeehouses, it got a little embarrassing."
These stories, she wrote, made me appreciate this noble animal.
This is the best book of dog stories I have read since James Herriot’s collection called "Dog Stories," was published in 1982. My old professor was right, however, a story about a dog creates an instant reader.
(Bill Duncan is editor of The Senior Times. He also writes a weekly column on the Opinion Page of The News-Review each Thursday.)