More Dog Books!

I had German Shepherds when I was growing up. Our first dog was Jody (which was pronounced Yody, with a German "J"). Freda, one of my mother's college roommates, trained German Shepherds for show, and she arranged for us to get Jody. Jody was bred as a show dog, but he had hip dysplasia, so became undesirable as a show dog. As a family dog, however, he was wonderful.

Jody came to us when I was 9. His coat was mostly black, with gold highlights and it was coarse, except for his face and his ears, which were velvet soft, and he had lovely brown eyes. He was a guard dog absolutely, he'd bark loud, scary barks when anyone came to the house, but was gentle to all of us and anyone we deemed friendly. He encountered skunks a few times, and so endured (and so did we) baths in tomato juice. He ate steak left out on the counter to thaw. In other words, he was a dog. A great dog. The best dog.

At work I saw an advance reader copy for RIN TIN TIN: The Life and The Legend, by Susan Orlean. This is Susan Orlean of THE ORCHID THIEF fame. Interesting! While I never watched Rin Tin Tin on TV, I was certainly aware of him as a famous dog. And he was a German Shepherd. I wanted to read this.

          

Orlean begins by talking about Lee Duncan, the man who found the original Rin Tin Tin in World War I in France. There is a picture in the beginning of the book of him and his unit in uniform, sitting on the ground somewhere in France, and he has a gorgeous German Shepherd puppy in his lap. The puppy who would become Rin Tin Tin.

Orlean talks about how Lee Duncan bonded with this dog so closely, almost certainly in part because of his childhood, in which his father was absent, and his mother sent Lee and his sister to an orphanage for four years so she could get back on her feet financially. Duncan seemed to find solace and connection with his dogs as he got older, and his best and closest connection was with Rin Tin Tin.

Orlean does a skillful and fascinating job chronicling Rin Tin Tin and his life with Duncan, his rise to fame in the movies and then in television (these would be descendents of the original Rin Tin Tin, though it really doesn't matter), as well as talking about dogs' roles in the military and in family life. She talks about how obedience training came into fashion, not just to train dogs for military or farm and ranch work or show business, but for dogs who live with families. I'd never really thought about it, but obedience training is a relatively new phenomenon, started in the 1920's and 30's. It caught on in a big way.

I am loving this book, and all I'm learning about Rin Tin Tin and dogs... I think I need to see a Rin Tin Tin movie! Evidently, his screen presence is amazing. Does Netflix carry Where the North Begins or Clash of the Wolves? I need to find out.


The next dog book I'll be reading is PACK OF TWO by Caroline Knapp. She wrote the brilliant book about her recovery from alcohol addiciton, DRINKING: A LOVE STORY, and this is her story of her getting a dog after getting sober. Therapist has been recommending this book to me for several years now. And I finally bought a copy so I can read it.

                    



And again, not that this is about winning (okay, maybe it is a little bit), but I am over halfway in the 100 handsell challenge at work! We had been given the task of picking a book that we can handsell in the store, by talking about it with customers, writing staff recommendation blurbs, and getting people to know about it and buy it. The book I chose was Susannah Charleson's SCENT OF THE MISSING, her fascinating book about her decision to get a puppy and train her to work as a Search and Rescue dog. I loved the book, loved learning about Search and Rescue (of which, I admit, I was woefully ignorant), loved reading about her training Puzzle and Puzzle becoming her partner in Search. So far I've sold 53 copies...wahoo!

          

Did you know that you can learn more about any of the books mentioned by clicking on the cover? You'll be taken to Amazon's site where you can read more about the book, and order it if you'd like. Hopefully Barnes and Noble will be restarting their affiliate program soon as well. Thanks for reading the blog!

Some Sadness and Some Dogs

A woman came up to me by the information desk. She was mid 50's-ish, short, high-lighted hair, very tan, and wearing one of those long ragged edged sweatshirts that are supposed to look cheap but are actually really expensive. She seemed almost frantic. She asked if we had a novel in which the main character is dealing with recovery and drug use.

"Hmm, well, this isn't a novel, but what about Beautiful Boy and Tweak?", I said. "I'm not exactly sure what you're looking for, but this is about drug use and the first one is from the dad's point of view and the Tweak is from his son, the user's point of view."

"I thought of those, but he relapses after the book. That's not good. My daughter is in recovery and I don't want that for her. She's read all the books that are specifically about addiction...Melody Beattie, etc., she's read all that. Committed it to memory, pretty much. My daughter is in recovery but she keeps getting involved with men and then gets sidetracked from what she needs to be doing for her recovery. I want to get her something to read where someone is dealing with their recovery."

"Has she read James Frey's A Million Little Pieces? In that book he's in recovery..."

"She LOVED that, that was great."

          

"Oh wait...again, this isn't a novel, but what about Drinking: A Love Story by Caroline Knapp? I just finished reading that. She's an alcoholic and keeps getting involved with men and she can't see how her alcohol addiction is getting in the way of her relationships."

"Hmm, I don't know...does she get out of it?"

"Yep", I said confidently. "By the end of the book she stops living with men because she realizes she has to get herself together and work on her recovery before she can be involved with men."

"That sounds perfect." She stopped, "except my daughter used meth, not alcohol. Where is it?" I took her to the Biography section and handed her a copy.

                         

When I told Therapist about it later, she suggested that I could have given her Caroline Knapp's next book, Pack of Two, where the author is in recovery and realizes that she can't even be in a relationship with people, so she gets a dog. I haven't read that one yet. It's on my list.

                         

******************

An older couple brought up The Encyclopedia of Dog Breeds.

                         

"Are you looking for a new dog? Or do you have a dog...?", I asked.

"We just lost our dog. A King Charles Spaniel. And we're trying to decide whether to stick with the same breed for our next dog, or get a different breed this time."

"They are nice dogs," I said. "We're getting a springer spaniel next week", I told them.

"Oh, that's great. The King Charles spaniels are great dogs. He was so wonderful."

"How old was he when he died?" I asked.

"He was 10. That breed is known for heart problems. We're lucky to have the time we did with him."

"It's hard to lose a dog, even if you know it's coming," I said. "I'm sorry you lost him...and good luck with your search!"

Sobriety, Finally

I just finished Drinking: A Love Story by Caroline Knapp.

               

Caroline Knapp is a good writer and writes about her relationship to alcohol, as well as to her family and her various partners while she was drinking. She talks about how she couldn't rely on herself and her own experience when she was drinking...

"There's something about sober living and sober thinking, about facing long afternoons without the numbing distraction of anesthesia, that disabuses you of the belief in externals, shows you that strength and hope come not from circumstances or the acquisition of things but from the simple accumulation of active experience, from gritting the teeth and checking the items off the list, one by one, even though it's painful and you're afraid.

"When you drink, you can't do that. You can't make the distinction between getting through painful feelings and getting away from them. All you can do is just sit there, numb and sipping, numb and drunk."

And she remembers her thought processes before she stopped drinking...

"...but by and large I saw growing up as something that happened to you. In some ways giving up an addiction involves reversing that equation, understanding finally that growth comes from the inside out, from trying and failing and trying again. When you quit drinking you stop waiting. You begin to let go of the wish, age-old and profound and essentially human, that someone will swoop down and do all the hard work, growing up, for you. You start living your own life.

"Circumstances - in particular, my parents' deaths - had been chipping away at my childhood for some time, but most of these had been out of my control. Choosing to get sober may have been the first truly adult decision I'd ever made, a step toward growth taken on my own behalf."

Knapp's journey to sobriety is a compelling one, made more so by the knowledge that she died from cancer in her 40's. Her descriptions of how alcohol kept her bound in unhealthy ways of thinking and acting were powerful and effective. I felt as though I got quite a glimpse into the life alcoholic.