Elizabeth von Arnim on the value of dogs

    Those of us who know the unsurpassed value of dogs cannot say it better than Elizabeth von Arnim said it:

I would like, to begin with, to say that though parents, husbands, children, lovers and friends are all very well, they are not dogs. In my day and turn having been each of the above, - except that instead of husbands I was wives, - I know what I am talking about, and am well acquainted with the ups and downs, the daily ups and downs, the sometimes almost hourly ones in the thin-skinned, which seem inevitably to accompany human loves.
    Dogs are free from these fluctuations. Once they love, they love steadily, unchangingly, till their last breath.
    That is how I like to be loved.
    Therefore I will write of dogs.

    Thus begins Elizabeth von Arnim’s 1936 book, All the Dogs of My Life. Hers is one of two literary dog books the Saunterer has read. The other is J. R. Ackerly’s 1956 book, My Dog Tulip. Both stories last in the heart. For a brief biography of Elizabeth von Arnim, click here. For something about My Dog Tulip, click here.

Comments

[Rand]

Another very good dog book is "Marley & Me" by John Grogan.
http://www.marleyandme.com/