The Big New Yorker Book of Dogs Read online

  Copyright © 2012 by The New Yorker Magazine

  All rights reserved.

  Published in the United States by Random House, an imprint of The Random House Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.

  RANDOM HOUSE and colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.

  All pieces in this collection, except as noted, were originally published in The New Yorker. The publication dates are given at the end of each piece.

  Excerpt from “Metamorphoses” by John Cheever, copyright © 1983 by John Cheever (The Wylie Agency LLC).

  Grateful acknowledgment is made to the following for permission to print previously published material:

  Doubleday, a division of Random House, Inc., and Faber & Faber: “Ava’s Apartment” from Chronic City by Jonathan Lethem, copyright © 2010 by Jonathan Lethem. All rights reserved. Reprinted by permission of Doubleday, a division of Random House, Inc., and Faber & Faber.

  The Estate of E. B. White: “Dog Around the Block” by E. B. White, reprinted courtesy of the Estate of E. B. White.

  Farrar, Straus and Giroux, LLC, and Sterling Lord Literistic, Inc.: “Tapka” from Natasha: And Other Stories David Bezmozgis, copyright © 2004 by Nada Films, Inc. Reprinted by permission of Farrar, Straus and Giroux, LLC, and Sterling Lord Literistic, Inc.

  Simon & Schuster, Inc.: “The Dog Star” from Rin Tin Tin: The Life and the Legend by Susan Orlean. Copyright © 2011 by Susan Orlean. Published in the UK by Atlantic Books Ltd. All rights reserved. Reprinted with the permission of Simon & Schuster, Inc.

  Credits for illustrations appear on this page

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  The big New Yorker book of dogs / foreword by Malcolm Gladwell.

  p. cm.

  eISBN: 978-0-679-64476-7

  1. Dogs—Anecdotes. I. New Yorker (New York, N.Y.: 1925)

  II. Title: New Yorker book of dogs. III. Title: Book of dogs.

  SF426.2.B56 2012

  636.7—dc23 2012033699

  www.atrandom.com

  v3.1

  “Did you woof?”

  CONTENTS

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  FOREWORD MALCOLM GLADWELL

  GOOD DOGS

  SNAPSHOT OF A DOG JAMES THURBER

  DOG AROUND THE BLOCK E. B. WHITE

  DOG STORY ADAM GOPNIK

  FOR A GOOD DOG OGDEN NASH

  DOG HEAVEN STEPHANIE VAUGHN

  BEREAVEMENT KEVIN YOUNG

  BEWARE OF THE DOGS BURKHARD BILGER

  THE WATCHER RUTH STONE

  DOG RUN MOON CALLAN WINK

  GREAT DOG POEM NO. 2 MARK STRAND

  DOG DAYS MARJORIE GARBER

  WISDOM TINGED WITH JOY DOROTHEA TANNING

  DOG LANGUAGE IAN FRAZIER

  BAD DOGS

  FROM “THE PET DEPARTMENT” JAMES THURBER

  DOG TROUBLE CATHLEEN SCHINE

  PEACOCK ALEXANDRA FULLER

  WHAT THE DOG SAW MALCOLM GLADWELL

  BULLDOG ARTHUR MILLER

  DON’T DO THAT STEPHEN DUNN

  SCOOPED LAUREN COLLINS

  TROUBLEMAKERS MALCOLM GLADWELL

  WALKING THE DOG: A DIATRIBE MONA VAN DUYN

  FROM METAMORPHOSES JOHN CHEEVER

  WORSE THAN HIS BITE ERIC KONIGSBERG

  TENNIS BALL DONALD HALL

  MAN BLAMES DOG BEN McGRATH

  CHABLIS DONALD BARTHELME

  DOG VIRGINIA WOODS BELLAMY

  DOWN THE LEASH ANGELICA GIBBS

  TOP DOGS

  A PREFACE TO DOGS JAMES THURBER

  THE DOG STAR SUSAN ORLEAN

  THE OWNER OF BEN FINNEY ALEXANDER WOOLLCOTT

  HIS LIFE AS A DOG REBECCA MEAD

  YOUR FACE ON THE DOG’S NECK ANNE SEXTON

  RICH BITCH JEFFREY TOOBIN

  SMALL-TOWN LIFE GEORGE W. S. TROW

  TALLYHO! E. J. KAHN, JR.

  SHOW DOG SUSAN ORLEAN

  THE UNRULY THOUGHTS OF THE DOG TRAINER’S LOVER ELIZABETH MACKLIN

  REAL DOGS RICHARD COHEN

  LA FORZA DEL ALPO ROGER ANGELL

  MONOLOGUE OF A DOG ENSNARED IN HISTORY WISLAWA SZYMBORSKA

  SCRATCH AND SNIFF IAN FRAZIER

  DOGOLOGY T. CORAGHESSAN BOYLE

  DOGTOWN BEN McGRATH

  FANCIERS GEORGE W. S. TROW

  DOG RACE ROALD DAHL

  UNDER DOGS

  THE DEPARTURE OF EMMA INCH JAMES THURBER

  LOST DOG SUSAN ORLEAN

  TAPKA DAVID BEZMOZGIS

  THE PROMOTION JAMES TATE

  PET SCAN JEROME GROOPMAN

  THE DOG RODDY DOYLE

  LINE AND TREE A. J. LIEBLING

  THE DOOR ON WEST TENTH STREET MAEVE BRENNAN

  RED DOG DAVE SMITH

  OBEDIENCE JOAN ACOCELLA

  DOG ON A CHAIN CHARLES SIMIC

  REACH FOR THE SKY JIM SHEPARD

  SHAGGY-DOG STORY KATE JULIAN

  DEATHS OF DISTANT FRIENDS JOHN UPDIKE

  “DAS MITBRINGEN VON HUNDEN IST POLIZEILICH VERBOTEN” DAVID DAICHES

  V.I.P. TREATMENT BEN McGRATH

  THE AMERICAN DOG IN CRISIS CALVIN TOMKINS

  AVA’S APARTMENT JONATHAN LETHEM

  A NOTE ON THURBER’S DOGS ADAM GOPNIK

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  CONTRIBUTORS

  ILLUSTRATION CREDITS

  “O. K., I’m sitting. What is it?”

  FOREWORD

  MALCOLM GLADWELL

  Like all emotionally fraught relationships in New York City, the interactions between New Yorkers and their dogs—and The New Yorker and the subject of dogs (since we are dealing with a notably intricate Venn diagram here)—are marked by guilt. Those of us who live in tiny, expensive apartments in this crowded, noisy city—who choose to live a life not fit for a dog—suspect that our lives are not fit to share with dogs. We like the fact that we can find fifteen kinds of ethnic food within three blocks of our house, and that the girl across the subway car from us was almost certainly on Law & Order. But these, we worry, are distinctively human pleasures. A dog is supposed to have a backyard to run around in. A dog needs a good bone and a brisk daily walk through verdant pastureland. So we get a dog—or, at least, we think about getting a dog—and we feel bad about it.

  A case in point. In my apartment building, I had to sign a notarized document pledging never to bring a dog into my apartment. Yet every morning I am awoken by the barking of my neighbor’s dog. My neighbor signed the same anti-dog pledge I did. But then she went out and got a dog, anyway—smuggling it in and out of the lobby in an Hermès bag, all the while worrying about what the dog thinks of being treated like a piece of contraband.

  All three positions in this triad are emotionally equivalent. The co-op board feels guilty about bringing dogs into our building’s cramped and sunless apartments, and so bans them. My neighbor defies the ban, and feels guilty about how her dog feels, zipped up in the bowels of her Hermès bag. And how do I feel about being woken up at six every morning? Guilty, of course. Me and my selfish desire for the dog to be quiet. Who am I to judge an animal with no other meaningful outlet of self-expression? When the barking stops, I picture the dog retreating to the couch, paws in the air, to talk sorrowfully about its lost puppyhood—and my heart breaks.

  You will notice that I have two pieces in this collection. I am proud of each. But I would be remiss if I did not tell you about the most important dog story I have ever written. I wrote it when I was a reporter at The Washington Post, and I am convinced that it was why—after I’d spent ten long, lonely years in the newspaper business—The New Yorker’s editors fina
lly noticed me.

  It was about Taro, an Akita in Bergen County, in northern New Jersey, who had been convicted of biting a young girl—the niece, as it turned out, of the dog’s owner. Since canine attacks in New Jersey are a capital offense, Taro was on doggy death row in Hackensack as his owner’s frantic last-minute appeals wound their way through the courts. I spent hours with his attorney, a prominent member of the canine bar by the name of Isabelle Strauss. I consulted with Taro’s psychiatrist. I painstakingly reconstructed the events that led to Taro’s criminal charges, until I was convinced that what the prosecution had claimed was a malicious bite was, in fact, an inadvertent swipe by one of Taro’s considerable front paws. It was all a gross miscarriage of justice.

  During Taro’s trial, a woman named Helen Doody testified that Taro had attacked and killed her Welsh terrier some three years previously. The relevant parts of the transcript still dwell in my mind. Under what possible principle of justice was this evidence admissible?

  DOODY: The dog was looking at me. The Akita was looking at me like he had accomplished something. He had just a look on his face…

  STRAUSS: Objection, Your Honor—

  DOODY: … all blood.

  STRAUSS: —to her characterization of what was in the dog’s mind.

  DOODY: He had a very pleased look on his face and he was covered in blood.

  JUDGE: Just describe what you saw. I know this is upsetting. But don’t try to tell us what was in the Akita’s mind, because I don’t know whether you—

  DOODY: I can just see his face. I saw his face for weeks in my dreams.

  From the courtroom, I drove to Taro’s bleak, high-security dog run, and listened as his anguished howl rolled across the surrounding countryside: whoof, whoof, whoof, whoof, whoof.

  But what is the lesson of the Taro story? As the result of my effort, Taro was pardoned by the governor of New Jersey, Christine Todd Whitman. And upon releasing him from death row, she made a single stipulation: that he leave the state and live out his days on the other side of the Hudson. Governor Whitman looked at what had been done to an innocent Akita by the legal authorities within her jurisdiction and realized that New Jersey was not fit for a dog. And where did she decide was fit for a dog? New York! Oh, the irony. We beat ourselves up here in the big city over our cramped and sunless apartments, and we forget that it could be worse. Across the river, in the verdant pastures of New Jersey, a dog is every day denied justice.

  A few words about you. You bought this book: several hundred pages on dogs. You are, in other words, as unhealthily involved in the emotional life of dogs as the rest of us are. Have you wondered why you bought it? One possible answer is that you see the subject of man’s affection for dogs as a way of examining all sorts of broader issues. Is it the case of a simple thing revealing a great many complex truths? We do a lot of this at The New Yorker. To be honest: I do a lot of this at The New Yorker—always going on and on about how A is just a metaphor for B, and blah, blah, blah. But let’s be clear. You didn’t really buy this book because of some grand metaphor. Dogs are not about something else. Dogs are about dogs.

  Another case in point. One of the first articles in this collection is “Dog Story” by Adam Gopnik. Adam is a friend of mine. He is a brilliant man who lives with his family in an apartment uptown. Adam doesn’t just write about how A is actually about B. He specializes in pieces that argue that A is actually about B, and B is an outgrowth of C, and C has a surprising connection to D, and so on, like a elaborate version of a Russian nesting doll, except that every time you open the doll you see a smaller doll inside that is tweaked in a subtle and counterintuitive way. Adam’s Russian dolls mutate. Except when the subject is dogs. “Dog Story” is about Butterscotch, the dog that Adam’s daughter, Olivia, insisted on getting. So what is “Dog Story” really about? What is the doll inside the doll inside the doll inside Butterscotch? Why, it’s Butterscotch!

  To this day, people ask me the same thing about my efforts on behalf of Taro, the death row dog. What was that about, Malcolm? My answer is always the same. It was not about anything, except the plight of this brave, incarcerated Akita. Isn’t that enough? In a world where one New Jersey dog is not safe from overzealous prosecution, no New Jersey dog is safe from overzealous prosecution. Let us leave the grand gestures and the metaphors to the cat people.

  I know what you are thinking right now. You’re thinking that there’s a twist about to happen—that I’m going to reveal, dramatically, that “Butterscotch” is, in fact, Taro, exiled from the moral wilderness of Bergen County to a junior six on the Upper East Side. In the Hollywood version of this introduction, that would indeed happen. But this is not Hollywood. This is The Big New Yorker Book of Dogs. Taro is Taro. Butterscotch is Butterscotch. Besides, how on earth would Adam find an Hermès bag big enough to sneak an Akita past his doorman?

  I have a favorite in this collection. It is Ben McGrath’s “Man Blames Dog.” It begins, “Pity the poor dog. In this time of heightened fear—of drugs, of bombs, of the things we humans might do to one another—man increasingly asks so much of him.” It turns out that a Hell’s Kitchen nightclub called Sound Factory had been required by authorities to employ a drug-sniffing dog—in this case, a seven-year-old black Labrador named Fanta. But when the police raided Sound Factory they found Fanta fast asleep. McGrath ever so briefly entertains the notion that Fanta might have been derelict in her duties before he rushes to her defense. Fanta was commuting into the city, we are told, from eastern Pennsylvania, an hour and a half away. The raid happened at six in the morning, at which point Fanta had already been at work for five hours. “So yeah, she was sleeping,” her handler told McGrath, and here we have it all: the injured tones, the defensiveness, the guilt over subjecting man’s best friend to five hours of electronic music every night. Who among us has not stood in her shoes? “There’s nothing for her to do,” she went on. “Am I supposed to tell her to stand at attention? I can’t explain to her that she must stay awake for no reason.”

  You will stay awake, dear reader. And with good reason. Whoof, whoof, whoof, whoof, whoof.

  SNAPSHOT OF A DOG

  JAMES THURBER

  I ran across a dim photograph of him the other day, going through some old things. He’s been dead twenty-five years. His name was Rex (my two brothers and I named him when we were in our early teens) and he was a bull terrier. “An American bull terrier,” we used to say, proudly; none of your English bulls. He had one brindle eye that sometimes made him look like a clown and sometimes reminded you of a politician with derby hat and cigar. The rest of him was white except for a brindle saddle that always seemed to be slipping off and a brindle stocking on a hind leg. Nevertheless, there was a nobility about him. He was big and muscular and beautifully made. He never lost his dignity even when trying to accomplish the extravagant tasks my brothers and myself used to set for him. One of these was the bringing of a ten-foot wooden rail into the yard through the back gate. We would throw it out into the alley and tell him to go get it. Rex was as powerful as a wrestler, and there were not many things that he couldn’t manage somehow to get hold of with his great jaws and lift or drag to wherever he wanted to put them, or wherever we wanted them put. He would catch the rail at the balance and lift it clear of the ground and trot with great confidence toward the gate. Of course, since the gate was only four feet wide or so, he couldn’t bring the rail in broadside. He found that out when he got a few terrific jolts, but he wouldn’t give up. He finally figured out how to do it, by dragging the rail, holding onto one end, growling. He got a great, wagging satisfaction out of his work. We used to bet kids who had never seen Rex in action that he could catch a baseball thrown as high as they could throw it. He almost never let us down. Rex could hold a baseball with ease in his mouth, in one cheek, as if it were a chew of tobacco.

  He was a tremendous fighter, but he never started fights. I don’t believe he liked to get into them, despite the fact that he came from a line of
fighters. He never went for another dog’s throat but for one of its ears (that teaches a dog a lesson), and he would get his grip, close his eyes, and hold on. He could hold on for hours. His longest fight lasted from dusk until almost pitch-dark, one Sunday. It was fought in East Main Street in Columbus with a large, snarly, nondescript that belonged to a big colored man. When Rex finally got his ear grip, the brief whirlwind of snarling turned to screeching. It was frightening to listen to and to watch. The Negro boldly picked the dogs up somehow and began swinging them around his head, and finally let them fly like a hammer in a hammer throw, but although they landed ten feet away with a great plump, Rex still held on.

  The two dogs eventually worked their way to the middle of the car tracks, and after a while two or three streetcars were held up by the fight. A motorman tried to pry Rex’s jaws open with a switch rod; somebody lighted a fire and made a torch of a stick and held that to Rex’s tail, but he paid no attention. In the end, all the residents and storekeepers in the neighborhood were on hand, shouting this, suggesting that. Rex’s joy of battle, when battle was joined, was almost tranquil. He had a kind of pleasant expression during fights, not a vicious one, his eyes closed in what would have seemed to be sleep had it not been for the turmoil of the struggle. The Oak Street Fire Department finally had to be sent for—I don’t know why nobody thought of it sooner. Five or six pieces of apparatus arrived, followed by a battalion chief. A hose was attached and a powerful stream of water was turned on the dogs. Rex held on for several moments more while the torrent buffeted him about like a log in a freshet. He was a hundred yards away from where the fight started when he finally let go.

  The story of that Homeric fight got all around town, and some of our relatives looked upon the incident as a blot on the family name. They insisted that we get rid of Rex, but we were very happy with him, and nobody could have made us give him up. We would have left town with him first, along any road there was to go. It would have been different, perhaps, if he had ever started fights, or looked for trouble. But he had a gentle disposition. He never bit a person in the ten strenuous years that he lived, nor ever growled at anyone except prowlers. He killed cats, that is true, but quickly and neatly and without especial malice, the way men kill certain animals. It was the only thing he did that we could never cure him of doing. He never killed, or even chased, a squirrel. I don’t know why. He had his own philosophy about such things. He never ran barking after wagons or automobiles. He didn’t seem to see the idea in pursuing something you couldn’t catch, or something you couldn’t do anything with, even if you did catch it. A wagon was one of the things he couldn’t tug along with his mighty jaws, and he knew it. Wagons, therefore, were not a part of his world.