Dog People
edited by Michael Rosen
reviewed by Max Shannon
Published by ARTISAN

"Outside of a dog," declared Groucho Marx, "a man's best friend is a book. Inside of a dog, it is too dark to read." Dog People edited by Michael J. Rosen is a collection of writings and images that deserve best chair/best lamp attention when you settle in with this wonderfully friendly book about dogs and their best friends - us humans.

The artists and writers here muse about their own small moments in the 12,000 years humans and dogs have been keeping company. Edward Albee eulogizes his octogenarian Irish Wolf Hound, the beloved Harry, a liberal democrat who sighed and whose sighs communicated great meaning to his playwright owner. Artists Vladimir and Evgenia Radunsky's dog Ooshi who dreams of Sushi is whimsically rendered doing just that. In "A Dog in Love," writer Merrill Markoe asks her sassy dog Winkie to listen to her for a minute. Sassy replies, "That's seven minutes to me."

We especially loved James Balog's photograph of the singular African hunter, the Basenji, and Robert Rosenblum's essay on his bulldog, Archie, along with said Archie's portrait by Timothy Greenfield-Sanders.

This is a book full of the magic that happens when dog souls meet human hearts, a charm that never grows old. "Dogs tend to study us," says Daniel Pinkwater in his essay on his shepherd-mix, Jacques, "but they make no conclusions. They observe us, but they do not judge us. I submit that under this kind of benign scrutiny we begin to feel comfortable about observing ourselves." Danny Shanahan takes a less philosophical approach in his "How to Read Your Dog" and becomes the observer instead of the observed. His clinical approach provides a groundbreaking rubric of canine ways.

It may be that the best thing about Dog People is that profits go to The Company of Animals Fund, which helps pets at risk of being given up or put down because of their owner's illness, age, or financial hardship. But we think the best thing about this handsome volume is the pleasant paradox it holds; for the harder these artists and writers strive to reveal the spirit of their dogs, the greater they reveal themselves.

A case in point is the grandmother in Enid Shomer's wonderful story "Mr. and Mrs. Foo," who boils it all down concisely: "A parakeet is nice, like a feather on a hat, but a dog is a mensch."

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