readingroom

One of the reasons Wuthering Heights (1847) made my list of classics I want to read was because I read about Emily Bronte’s relationship with her dog in Shaggy Muses: The Dogs Who Inspired Virginia Woolf, Emily Dickinson, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Edith Wharton, and Emily Bronte (2007). Maureen Adams book fascinated me. Who knew that these authors had such close relationships with their canine companions? Surely my reason for reading WH is tenuous, at best, but wouldn’t any author love any readers, despite their reasons for reading the work?

And really, Shaggy Muses was only a prelude to the in-depth reading I’ve done on dogs lately. Bringing a third dog into our home redirected a lot of my reading of the past three or four weeks into dog behavior books. Now that there’s a pack to attend to, there’s much more management on my part of my beloved pack of spaniels and a border collie.

The terrible thing is that I’ve read my eyeballs dry. But haven’t written much of all my reading of late, and I suspect it’s because most books I’ve selected of late are mostly unremarkable. Then too, I’m lazy.

So I’ve read about housebreaking your dogs, and leading your pack, and border collies on farms. While I enjoyed Cesar Milan’s books, I really love Jon Katz’s work. His Katz on Dogs: A Commonsense Guide to Training and Living With Dogs (2005) was the last thing I read last year. I loved it. Ate it up. It’s a wonderful, practical book  that any dog owner or dog lover or potential dog owner or lover should read. He doesn’t ascribe to any one training method, but combines bits and pieces from several that work for him and his canines.

And then I read A Good Dog: The Story of Orson, Who Changed My Life (2006). Loved it, too. Orson was Katz’s troubled border collie. Reading about their relationship and their ultimate destiny was sobering, yet inspiring. I’m waiting on all those other Katz books. Waiting for the public library to get it’s courier service ironed out so I can devour all of Katz’s books on dogs.

But what do I love so much? Katz’s writing is accessible, easy to fall into. His subject matter enthralls me: Border collies, sheep, and farm life. And the knowledge he gained, self, canine, and agricultural, are lovely to know. I’m so glad he shared it with his readers.