Book Review: Underdogs: Beauty is More than Fur Deep (small coffee table book with contemporary quotes)

Underdogs: Beauty is More than Fur Deep, by Jim Dratfield (Clarkson Potter, $17, 2002, 112 pp)

Every coffee table needs a picture book of dogs and their quotes to serve as a mood enhancer after a difficult day and Underdogs is one such book with non-breeds, unrecognizable canine ones, mongrels and mutts to make your day just a little bit larger with their outrageous personalities.

Most coffee table books illustrate the beautiful breeds of the dog world - the regal Afghans, the sporty goldens, the family labs, but Jim Dratfield has collected 50 or so mottled and brindled dogs he found, those with the most personality to shine through along with quotes from people we all know like Oprah and Charles Schulz (Peanuts).

Though the cover photo is so very descriptive - and magnetic, I might have put this one on the cover (it appears as the first photo in the book, however): 

And, by googling for the Great Dane photo above, I found that Dratfield is my favorite canine (lab) photographer: I have this one as a post card

and haven't we all fallen in love with this lab's thoughts? 

Underdogs is a nice little book to give and to keep (and carry).