Repeat Post - Because of Harvey

DogEvals is reposting our review of a quick book, Buddy. Buddy will help you understand what it is like to live through Harvey (or Katrina). Buddy also speaks of the temporary loss (potentially permanent?) of one's best friend. It is well worth reading this summer and fall, if you have friends in Houston, other parts of Texas or Louisiana. If you don't, you will live a small part of the lives of those who lived through Harvey.


Buddy, by M.H. Herlong (Puffin Books, 2012, 304 pages, $7.99 Kindle, ages 9 and up)

“How Far Will a Boy go for a Dog He Loves?”

(And the question behind this question: “How far would you go?”)

Buddy is the story of a young boy of modest means, living in both pre- and post-Katrina New Orleans, who yearns for a dog. Constantly.

The little boy, Li’l T, and his family literally run into a dog on their way to church and decide to make him theirs.

How Buddy comes to live with three legs could be a memorable book in itself.

Ah, Buddy, . . . .

I could merely tell you the story of Buddy but I won’t – because I want you to read the book and enjoy it like my entire family did. (Perhaps that is why Buddy is marked as being recommended for ages 9 and up, rather than, e.g., ages 9-12) Buddy is worth it plus you can read the book in parts which makes it so easy to just set aside a small bit of time: with 37 short chapters, you can pick it up and put it down after a few minutes of reading, without losing the momentum of the story.

Buddy is extraordinary. Each chapter could be one part of a continuing serial, in the daily newspaper, for instance. Didn’t Charles Dickens do that? And successfully so.

I started up wanting a dog the day after I was born. (p. 11)

Lil’ T and Buddy grow closer with each day of living just like your family lives. Although Buddy is not quite a coming-of-age novel, Lil’ T does experience numerous situations that he learns from – from an Iraq vet to Katrina (of course), from the death of an old lady neighbor to neighborhood kids turning bad, from saving for a bike to mowing lawns to save for dog food.

And then there’s Katrina.

“. . . could be  you’re too crazy in love to see how ugly he is.” (p. 42) said Granpa T.

Lil’ T is a real little boy with a grandfather who lives with them, a little sister and two parents – his father being strict but loving and someone to be respected.

We don’t remember what Buddy looks like or how big the dog is but the cover illustration shows a Border Collie type dog. Lil’ T is protective of Buddy and almost becomes a neighborhood hero because he has the dog everyone wants.

(p. 122) “I can’t leave Buddy. I can’t not leave Buddy.”

Hard choices. 

There are not an enormous number of Katrina books, fiction or non-fiction, currently in libraries or bookstores. Perhaps she (the storm) is too recent in our composite memory, but now may be just the right time for a Katrina book written for those too young to remember, so they live through it vicariously: the uncertainty, the not wanting to leave, the not wanting to return, the loss of a friend perhaps, having to sleep on a cot in a large auditorium that is never quiet.

Katrina comes between Lil’ T and Buddy – for a few months, and then . . . the family returns to devastation and recovery work. And Buddy was lost. And then ­– the rest of the story is for you to live through: suffice it to say that Lil’ T grows and grows.

And when he gets a new puppy for Christmas, is he happy? Would you be?­­

What if he found Buddy only to lose him. . . .? Or to give him away?

The Final Word

Buddy is about a normal family and their normal life (except for Katrina). Buddy is also the story about a boy growing up with a bratty little sister, a new baby, a grandfather, and parents who are sometimes stern but always have their children foremost in their minds.

Buddy is about yearning and loss and finding and love and growing older or growing up just a little bit, and sharing, and family, and, of course, about dogs.

Buddy is well-written with perfect pacing, very readable for families as a group after dinner or for pre-teens by themselves (girls and boys). No wonder Buddy has received so many accolades!

Book Review: From Hoofbeats to Dogsteps (golden retriever, gait, structure, memoir)

From Hoofbeats to Dogsteps: A Life of Listening to and Learning from Animals, by Rachel Page Elliott (Dogwise, 2009, 167 pages, $19.95)

The Grand Dame of American Golden Retrievers

From Hoofbeats to Dogsteps says it all: a horse loving girl, born in 1913, grows up to become a canine motion and conformation expert, almost a research scientist, studying movement and structure in dogs, invited to speak all over the world, and a woman who took up agility in her 80s.

Almost a Sculptress

Pagey, Rachel Page Elliott, was a unique and highly respected dog lady. Although born, raised and a life-long resident of New England, she drove cross-country at age 18 with her sister Priscilla (Pike*) in a Ford Model A, and later worked horses on a Montana sheep ranch and at a camp in Utah, rounding out her college Cliffie (Radcliffe) education as a genuine person, not a Depression-era debutante from a loving and educated family (reminiscent of Little Women, even down to the towns in Massachusetts).

Nowhere else will you see Yellowstone as it was in 1930 – or the Pendleton Roundup.

Perhaps her early interest in soap carving was the impetus for her decades-long study of golden retriever breeding and anatomy. The Elliotts established Featherquest Kennels, still going strong today, specializing in field goldens.

Another hobby Pagey grew into was creating jig-saw puzzles. She would always include pieces that showed dogs in motion, dogs sitting, dogs and children, cats, birds, and puppies as well as the myriad usual jig-saw shapes. And, at the 2009 Golden Retriever National auction for the GR Foundation, one of Pagey’s puzzles brought in $27,000 and put her in the Guinness book of records.

They Bought the Farm (in 1946)

Pagey and her dentist husband bought an old fixer-upper farm in Massachusetts and lived there all their days – a farm just big enough to hold canine competitions.

Her studies began with taking photos of moving goldens, then movies of goldens moving. She managed to spend time at Harvard, using their resources to research bone and joint motion that was ground-breaking then and routinely accepted by all, now.

And thus, Dogsteps was born in 1973! The first edition was to go through eight printings and become a bestseller. The following year, the book won the Dog Writers’ Association award and Pagey was awarded the Gaines Dog Woman of the Year.

For You, If, . . . .

Hoofbeats is the book to read if you have known Rachel Page Elliott even from a distance like me, if you want to learn about your parents or grandparents born circa 1913 and growing up in New England or Wyoming or Montana or Oregon during the Depression, if you are a canine conformation person (dog show) – handler or breeder, if you are a Golden Retriever lover or have ever been to the National or even ‘just’ a local dog show or watched Westminster on TV.

On the other hand, Hoofbeats reads like a folksy old-fashioned letter from grandma rather than a spellbinding story of yesteryear by an accomplished author. Unlike Karen London, I loved reading about Pagey’s upbringing and felt the canine gait and structure chapters were a bit superficial – not detailed enough for this analytic soul, but I agree with London on the writing style.

The Biggest Omission

I can’t believe Pagey is not listed in Wikipedia. . . . she should be, for correcting the fallacy of the 45-degree layback!

Pagey’s Publications

1973 (3^rd edition, 2009, soft cover), Dogsteps: A new look (and illustrated gait at a glance, 2^nd edition, 1983)(New Dogsteps: A better understanding of dog gait through cineradiography [moving X-rays], 1^st edition, 1973)

2005, Dogsteps DVD: What to look for in a dog

2005, Canine Cineradiography DVD: A study of bone and joint motion as seen through moving X-rays

2006, The Golden Retriever DVD: - Structure, movement and use

(all available from www.DogWise.com and recommended by the Golden Retriever Club of America [GRCA, www.grca.org])

*Another sister’s delightful name - Fordham, Fordie.

Confessions of a Professional Dog Trainer: #1 - The Time I Taught Mia the Lab to Go to the Bathroom - Inside!

Confessions of a Professional Dog Trainer: #1 – The Time I Taught Mia the Lab to Go to the Bathroom – Inside!

OK, I admit it. I was bored. And Mia the Lab was bored, too.

MIa the Lab, worried about her
person disappearing behind the camera

I was dogsitting. In a two-bedroom condo. For five weeks. And this was only Week Two.

And I had run out of ideas about how to feed Mia the Lab.

You see, I believe in canine enrichment and that means throwing away the dog food bowl.

It’s more fun for the dog to have to find his food by smelling it out plus dinner lasts longer when it is in several different places. The dog has to think and find his meal parts which takes time!

For a couple of days I had hand-fed Mia the Lab her kibble (dry dog food) but that was slow - and slimy-yucky to boot.

So, for a few days I saved food containers – the ones yogurt comes in, and store-boughten egg salad for sammiches, and margarine. Then I put several pieces of kibble in each one and put them in the kitchen and in the bedroom and in the hallway and – you get the idea.

But by the time I had put one container down and walked a ways to put another one down, Mia the Lab was right behind me. She could run from kibble container to kibble container, being a 'small' dog (smaller than me), but this human combat veteran was too old and creaky to run from room to room ahead of a starving Lab.

So I decided to freeze her food.

I bought some plain fat-free yogurt and mixed in as much kibble as I could, then covered the bottom of all those containers from the previous days with the mixture, and put them in the freezer. (You can also use a bit of fat-free peanut butter as a flavoring agent.)

By the next meal, the kibble-yogurt concoction would be frozen stiff to both last longer and to also cool down a 'hot-dog' in our humid muggy Washington, DC, summer (Washington was actually built on a drained swamp so when the Pres says he is going to drain the swamp, he’s a little behind the curve. It’s already been done but he doesn’t know it – that would have taken a college course in US History.)

So for a few days, I managed to outrun Mia the Dog and place the ‘foody’ containers down in all the different rooms ahead of her (it takes longer to eat frozen kibble-yogurt than to scarf up room-temp kibble). This allowed me to sit back and watch her frantic enjoyment with eating. And giggle.

Then we, Mia the Lab and me, became bored again.

So, being the good little dog trainer that I am, I decided to train her.

Duh! Why didn’t I think of that before?

I wondered if I could train her to go to a room and stay there while I placed the kibble containers down in the other rooms.

Then she would have to smell out the kibble while I watched with fascination and rooted for her.

Of course, there was only the kitchen and the living room and the hallway and the first bedroom and the second bedroom and the bathroom – ah! The bathroom. Perfect! The smallest room.

So, I looked at Mia the Lab and said, “Mia, go to the bathroom.” She would grab a toy (after all, she is a retriever) and follow me down the hall. When we got to the bathroom, I turned around and shut the door on that poor little ol’ hang-dog look. The door didn’t close all the way because my client hangs his bath towels over the top of the door, allowing Mia the Lab to peek out or, later, when she got smarter, to open the door with her snout and come out for the kibble hunt.

That gave me time to get out the kibble concoctions from the freezer and place them strategically around the ‘house.’

Of course, I tried to vary the locations from meal to meal.

She would always check the place she thought I put down the final container. Or the last place she found some kibble – to no avail. Then she would finally trust her trusty ol’ sniffer-nose.

And sometimes we both would forget to count the locations, only to find one hours later – Mia the Lab’s surprise snack attack!

Mia is so good at this meal game that she can understand when I tell her to go to the bathroom.

And after I had hidden her complete meal, I could either call her (and thus practice the recall – but as soon as she found a dish, she would "forget" to come to me) or just say, “OK,” or even just clap my hands!

Eventually, I only had to tell her to go to the bathroom and she would grab a toy and go - all by herself like a big girl dog.

Voila! A dog who understands whole, complete sentences AND goes to the bathroom - indoors!

End of confession number one. Hope you enjoyed it!

Addendum: I love to watch Mia the Lab hunt for dinner and snarf it down. She is quite the entertainer, tail wagging wildly from side to side as she downs her dinner. Or breakfast. Or lunch.

PS – of course it helps if I only tell her to go to the bathroom when it is time to eat. And I haven’t tried this outside when she is on a potty break!

PPS - if you use peanut butter, be sure it has no Xylitol as an ingredient (poisonous to dogs)

PPPS - after Mia's person was PCS'd (transferred), I went to dogsit so her person could return home for the holidays. I found that in a different state, in a different apartment, Mia still understood "Mia, Go to the bathroom." What a smart cookie!

Book Review: Saving Mr. Terupt (7 7th graders, a minor minor character in Margo the dog)

Saving Mr. Terupt, by Rob Buyea (Delacorte Press, 2016, 372 pages, $16.99, juvenile fiction, ages 9-12, grades 4-7)

Seven Kids Entering Seventh Grade. . . .

Each incident segment (junior high crisis) is written by or continued by different kids: the reader quickly comes to know all four girls and three boys, “besties,” but each as different as night and day.

One has a single mom, one lives with parents and “grands” on a farm, one is incredibly smart, one is a budding fashion designer, one is a wordsmith and carries her journal everywhere, one is a photographer, one is an artist, two are wrestlers, one is bullied, one has a baby brother whose origin is hinted at and written about in a previous title*, one finds a father and one almost loses a mother.

And a wedding and a baby, too.

Through it all is Mr. Terupt, no longer their teacher but still the person who has the most influence over our gang of seven seventh graders.

I love how each chapter is titled Anna or Jessica or Peter or whoever’s voice is the narrator - and each title, each name, is set in a different type font that depicts their personality. The following chapter and author/kid continues the story from a different viewpoint and, a couple of times, we learn about the same subplot from more than one of the “gang” members.

Mr. Terupt, T, Teach, was their 5^th grade teacher and their 6^th grade teacher and is quite the inspiration. He gave each one a special gift – a journal, a special book, his old wrestling shoes and headgear, . . . .

The Gang of Seven

The gang promises Mr. Terupt to stay together in junior high but it is hard: junior high is big and busy. However, they manage to do so when they have a project to work on: a school election, a fair, the school district’s budget. The gang also manages to lead the entire 7^th grade (and even the entire the student body) but they are, after all, the stars we follow through their lives.

The reader will look forward to junior high or, if past that, will reminisce about the good old days, now that junior high is far behind.

The Trilogy

As 5^th graders in Because of Mr. Terupt and as 6^th graders in Mr. Terupt Falls Again and now as 7^th graders, the gang manages to stick together miraculously by the skin of their teeth, through all that happens to the group and its individuals.

Each contemplates far beyond what the normal 7^th grader normally does, using vocabulary that at times seems to mirror their future selves.

How such a diverse group manages to stick together and grow is somewhat manipulative but it works and works well. We come to love each of them.

I would recommend starting with the first book, Because of Mr. Terupt, (or the second, Mr. Terupt Falls Again, to fully understand the power of this teacher and the glue of the gang (starting with the third book whets one’s appetite to learn more about certain incidents that happen in the first two books, alluded to, and to have a need to find out about Mr. Terupt’s magic – it is spoken of but not lived through in book three – but will be experienced again in the sequel).

Wisdom** abounds (phenotype is genotype plus the environment) and not only from Mr. Terupt. One of the students starts a list of Seventh Grade Survival Tips that he adds to as the year progresses.

And the book is divided into months, starting with the end of summer and how some spent their summer vacation. The reader races through the year reading voraciously if even guessing correctly what will happen next.

The author tries so hard to give us seven very different characters (why?) but seven is a large number and the attempt to write in seven voices doesn’t quite succeed.

The Future

Saving Mr. Terupt would make an unforgettable movie or series of movies – full of drama and friendship and lessons (but not much school!)

*Because of Mr. Terupt and Mr. Terupt Falls Again are the first two titles in this trilogy so far. I suspect there will be sequels. In addition, BookPages has published the Kindle edition, 52 pages, of  Summary & Study Guide: Because of Mr. Terupt by Rob Buyea. Sort of a Cliff’s Notes so you know this is a book to read.

**”. . . it’s not necessarily the biggest or fastest individuals that survive, but the ones most responsive to change.” (page 357) And each of the seven gives us their best lessons learned in the last two pages. Words to grow by.