(Author, cartoonist, humorist, and satirist, James Grover Thurber was born in 1894 in Columbus, Ohio. He began his career as a reporter for the Columbus Evening Dispatch and became known for his work on The New Yorker, where he was a writer and a cartoonist. Some say his most famous story is “The Secret Life of Walter Mitty.”

The brief passage below is taken from a personal essay entitled, “And So to Medve.” Although this excerpt does not directly relate to it, within the longer work, Thurber talks about his dog, Medve, which he states is Hungarian for “bear.” One Thurber aphorism is “The dog has seldom been successful in pulling man up to its level of sagacity, but man has frequently dragged the dog down to his.” Thurber died in 1961.)

Dog may be man’s best friend, but Man is often Dog’s severest critic, in spite of his historic protestations of affection and admiration. He calls an unattractive girl a dog, he talks acidly of dogs in the manger, he describes a hard was of life as a dog’s life, he observes, cloudily, that this misfortune or that shouldn’t happen to a dog, as if most slings and arrows should, and he describes anybody he can’t stand as a dirty dog. He notoriously takes the names of the female dog and her male offspring in vain, to denounce blackly members of his own race. In all this disdain and contempt there is a curious streak of envy, akin to what the psychiatrists know as sibling jealousy. Man is troubled by what might be called the Dog Wish, a strange and involved compulsion to be as happy and carefree as a dog, and I hope that some worthy psychiatrist will do a monograph on it one of these days. Even the Romans of two thousand years ago displayed the peculiar human ambivalence about the dog. There are evidences, in history and literature, of the Romans’ fondness for the dog, and my invaluable Cassell’s Latin Dictionary reveals proof of their hostility. Among the meanings of canis were these: a malicious, spitful person; a parasite, a hanger-on. The worst throw in dice was also known to the Romans as a dog. Caesar may have been afraid he would throw a dog that day he crossed the Rubicon.

Tracing aspersions on the dog in literature and in common everyday speech is a task for some stronger authority than I, such as the Oxford English Dictionary, but there are a few calumnies that I might glance at here, in passing. I remember when “Don’t be an Airedale all your life” was a common expression in the Middle West, and a man I knew in Zanesville thirty years ago used the expression a dozen times a day. Shakespeare takes many cracks at Dog from “I would rather be a dog and baying at the moon than such a Roman” to “Turn, hellhound!” which Mackduff hurls at the bloody Macbeth to start their fifth-act duel with broadswords. The Bard, knowing full well that it is men who are solely responsible for wars, nevertheless wrote “Cry havoc, and let loose the dogs of war!” But it is not only in the classics that the much-maligned hound has been attacked. A craven pugilist is known to boxing fans as a hound. And I have always resented the words Whittier put in Stonewall Jackson’s mouth: “Who touches a hair on yon gray head dies like a dog!” Here it is implied that any soldier who took a free shot at Barbara Frietchie would be shot, and shooting is rarely the end of a dog. There are a score of birds and animals which could more aptly have been substituted for the dog and I suggest, “Who touches a hair on yon gray head dies like a duck!” But alas, these ancient libels are past erasing, and Dog will simply have to go on enduring them as patiently as he can.

Editor’s Note:
To find out more about Shakespeare’s reference to the dog, please read the article written by Bob Nazak entitled, “Shakespeare Goes to Montgomery.”

(This excerpt is taken from a personal essay entitled, “Crimes Against Dog,” written by Alice Walker about her dog Marley. Among her many literary awards, Ms. Walker received the Pulitzer Prize in 1983 for The Color Purple.)

” What is it about dogs? I think what I most appreciate in Marley is how swiftly she forgives me. Anything. Was I cool and snooty when I got up this morning? Did I neglect to greet her when I came in from a disturbing movie? Was I a little short on the foodstuffs and did I forget to give her a cube of dried liver? Well. And what about that walk we didn’t do and the swim we didn’t take and why don’t I play ball with her the way I did all last week? And who is this strange person you want me to go off with? It doesn’t matter what it is, what crime against Dog I have committed. She always forgives me. She doesn’t even appear to think about it. One minute she’s noting my odd behavior, the next, if I make a move toward her, she’s licking my hand. As if to say, Gosh, I’m so glad you’re yourself again, and you are back!

Dogs understand something I was late learning: When we are mean to anyone or any being it is because we are temporarily not ourselves. We’re somebody else inhabiting these bodies we think of as us. They recognize this. Ooops, I imagine Marley saying to herself, sniffing my anger, disappointment, or distraction. My mommy’s not on there at the moment. I’ll just wait until she gets back. I’ve begun to feel this way more than a little myself. Which is to say, Marley is teaching me to be more self-forgiving. Sometimes I will say something that hurts a friend’s feelings. I will be miserable and almost want to do away with myself. Then I’ll think, But that wasn’t really the you that protects and loves this friend so much you would never hurt them. That was the you that slipped in because you are sad and depressed about other things: the state of your love life, your health, or the fate of the planet. The you that loves your friend is back now. Welcome her home. Be gentle with her. Tell her you understand. Lick her hand.”

(The following is an excerpt from a personal essay entitled, “The Color of Joy,” written by Caroline Knapp. Ms. Knapp was a columnist and a memoirist who started her career as a reporter for the Phoenix newspapers. Her second book, Pack of Two: The Intricate Bond Between People and Dogs (Dial, 1998), deals with love and relationships. Ms. Knapp died June 3, 2004, at the age of 42.)

In my view, dogs can be shamanistic, can be heroic and gentle and wise and enormously healing, but for the most part are dogs, governed by their own biological imperatives and codes of conduct, and we do both them and our relationships with them a disservice when we romanticize them . . .

That said, I also believe that dogs can – and often do – lead us into a world that is qualitatively different from the world of people, a place that can transform us. Fall in love with a dog, and in many ways you enter a new orbit, a universe that features not just new colors but new rituals, new rules, a new way of experiencing attachment.

Everything shifts in this new orbit, sometimes subtly, sometimes dramatically. Walks are slower: You find yourself ambling up a city street instead of racing to a destination, the dog stopping to sniff every third leaf, every other twig, every bit of debris or detritus in your path. The clothes are different: Predog, I used to be very finicky and self-conscious about how I looked; now I schlep around in the worst clothing – big heavy boots, baggy old sweaters, a hooded down parka from L.L. Bean that makes me look like an astronaut. The language is different, based on tone and nuance instead of vocabulary. Even the equipment is new and strange: You find yourself ordering unthinkable products from the Foster & Smith catalog (smoked pigs’ ears, chicken-flavored toothpaste), and you find your living-room floor littered with sterilized beef bones and rawhide chips and plastic chew toys and topes and balls, and you find your cupboards stocked with the oddest things—freeze-dried liver cubes, tick shampoo, poop bags.

Memories

The following excerpt was taken from a book entitled, Quality and Other Studies and Essays, written in 1912 by John Galsworthy. John Galsworthy (1867 -1933) won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1932.

“Memories”

If a man does not soon pass beyond the thought “By what shall this dog profit me?” into the large state of simple gladness to be with dog, he shall never know the very essence of that companionship which depends not on the points of dog, but on some strange and subtle mingling of mute spirits. For it is by muteness that a dog becomes for one so utterly beyond value; with him one is at peace, where words play no torturing tricks. When he just sits, loving, and knows that he is being loved, those are the moments that I think are precious to a dog; when, with his adoring soul coming through his eyes, he feels that you are really thinking of him . . . It is on our hearts that his life is engraved.

(This is an excerpt from a short story by Ann Patchett, entitled, “This Dog’s Life.” To read the complete story and others by this author, look for the book, Dog Is My Co-Pilot.)

“You were always my most normal friend,” my friend Elizabeth told me, “until you got this dog.”

While I think I would have enjoyed the company of many different dogs, I believe that the depth of my feeling for Rose in particular comes from the fact that she is, in matters of intelligence, loyalty and affection, an extraordinary animal. In the evenings, I drive Rose across town to a large open field where people come together to let their dogs off their leashes and play. As she bounds through the grass with the Great Danes and the Bernese Mountain Dogs, I believe that there was never a dog so popular and well adjusted as mine (and yet realize at the same time that this is the height of my own particular brand of insanity). The other dog owners want to talk about identifying her lineage, perhaps in hopes that one of her cousins might be located. It is not enough for Rose to be a good dog. She must be a particular breed of dog. She has been, depending on how one holds her in the light, a small Jack Russell, a large Chihuahua, a Rat Terrier, a Fox Terrier and a Corgi with legs. At present, she is a Portuguese Podengo, a dog that to the best of my knowledge was previously unknown in Tennessee. It is the picture she most closely resembles in our International Encyclopedia of Dogs. We now say things like “Where is the Podengo?” and “Has the Podengo been outside yet?” to give her a sense of heritage. In truth, she is a Parking Lot Dog, dropped off in a snowstorm to meet her fate.

I watch the other dog owners in the park, married people and single people and people with children. The relationship each one has with his or her dog is very personal and distinct. But what I see again and again is that people are proud of their pets, proud of the way that they run, proud of how they nose around with the other dogs, proud that they are brave enough to go into the water or smart enough to stay out of it. People seem able to love their dogs with an unabashed acceptance that they rarely demonstrate with family or friends. The dogs do not disappoint them, or if they do, the owners manage to forget about it quickly. I want to learn to love like this, the way we love our dogs, with pride and enthusiasm and a complete amnesia for faults. In short, to love others the way our dogs love us.

When a dog devotes so much of herself to your happiness, it only stands to reason you would want to make that dog happy in return. Things that would seem unreasonably extravagant for yourself are nothing less than a necessity for your dog. So my boyfriend and I hired a personal trainer for Rose. We had dreams of obedience, of sit and stay and come, maybe a few simple tricks. She didn’t really seem big enough to drag the paper inside. I was nervous about finding the right trainer and called my friend Erica for moral support, but she was too busy going on interviews to get her four-year-old son into a top Manhattan preschool to be too sympathetic. The trainer we went with was the very embodiment of dog authority figures. After a few minutes of pleasant conversation in which Rose jumped on his shoulder and licked the top of his head, he laid out the beginnings of his plan.

Number one: The dog doesn’t get on the furniture.

We blinked. We smiled nervously. “But she likes the furniture,” we said. “We like her on the furniture.”

He explained to us the basic principles of dog training. She has to learn to listen. She must learn parameters and the concept of no. He tied a piece of cotton rope to her collar and demonstrated how we were to yank her off the sofa cushion with a sharp tug. Our dog went flying through the air. She looked up at us from the floor, more bewildered than offended. “She doesn’t sleep with you, does she?” the trainer asked.

“Sure,” I said, reaching down to rub her neck reassuringly. She slept under the covers, her head on my pillow, her muzzle on my shoulder. “What’s the point of having a twelve-pound dog if she doesn’t sleep with you?”

He made a note in a folder. “You’ll have to stop that.”

I considered this for all of five seconds. “No,” I said. “I’ll do anything else, but the dog sleeps with me.”

After some back-and-forth on this subject, he relented, making it clear that it was against his better judgment. For the duration of the ten-week program, either I sat on the floor with Rose or we stayed in bed. We celebrated graduation by letting her back up on the couch.

I went to see my friend Warren, who, handily, is also a psychologist, to ask him if he thought things had gotten out of hand. Maybe I have a obsessive-compulsive disorder concerning my dog.

“You have to be doing something to be obsessive-compulsive,” he said. “Are you washing her all the time? Or do you think about washing her all the time?”

I shook my head.

“It could be codependency, then. Animals are by nature very codependent.”

I wasn’t sure I liked this. Codependency felt too trendy. Warren’s sixteen-year-old daughter, Kate, came in, and I asked her if she wanted to see the studio portraits I had taken of Rose for my Christmas cards. She studied the pictures from my wallet for a minute and then handed them back to me. “Gee,” she said. “You really want to have a baby, don’t you?”

I went home to my dog. I rubbed her pink stomach until we were both sleepy. We’ve had Rose a year now, and there has never been a cold and rainy night when I’ve resented having to take her outside. I have never wished I didn’t have a dog, while she sniffed at each individual blade of grass, even as my hands were freezing up around the leash. I imagine there are people out there who got a dog when what they wanted was a baby, but I wonder if there aren’t other people who had a baby when all they really needed was a dog.

Mr. Shakespeare Goes to Montgomery

. . .as told to Bob Nazak

Though the word “dog” appears 151 times in the works of Shakespeare, the only dog to ever appear in a Shakespearean play was a small dog in The Two Gentlemen of Verona. Sporting the name of Crab, he was owned by Valentine’s servant Launce. Though no breed is identified, the Oxford Companion to English Literature states that Crab appears to be a small lap dog, whose name suggests the size and sourness of a crab apple, clearly he was not a Kerry Blue. Contrary to rumors heard under the grooming tent, there is no evidence that crab was ever entered in an Elizabethan Dog Show. In fact, there is no record of dog shows being held in the late 16th century (though there are some obtuse and vague references on the MB-F Website). Sadly, Mr. Shakespeare could not have attended a Dog Show in his lifetime.

But then in October 2002, fate played a fortuitous trick when an unusual conjunction of the planets created a major rift in the time-space continuum, resulting in narrowly focused juxtaposition of the years 1602 and 2002. As luck would have it, the effect was centered in southeastern Pennsylvania and took place in early October — Montgomery weekend. Through good fortune and relativistic chance, we found ourselves staying in the same Holiday Inn as “The Bard”. Recognizing the unique opportunity to correct the 400-year-old defect in Mr. Shakespeare’s education, we invited him to the show. After we explained what a Dog Show was, he eagerly accepted. (In truth, it may have been the promise of lunch under the tent — Chicken a la King with a glass of rare wine — that convinced him.)

As we strolled about the show site, we were quick to recognize the historic significance of the occasion, and realized that it was important to record Mr. Shakespeare’s observations for the fancy to share and learn. His every word was recorded digitally. While I have not completed the translation of his Elizabethan era phrases, a preliminary review shows that he quickly grasped the concepts and intricacies of the Dog Show world. Eager to share his impressions, I present a partial translation and interpretation of the highlights found in a quick review of the recording. The actual quotation of “The Bard” is noted by Q, the modern translation is marked as T.

Q “Mastiff, grey-hound, mongrel grim,
Hound or spaniel, brach or lym,
Or bobtail tike or trundle-tail,
Tom will make them weep and wail:”
– King Lear, Act 3, Scene 6
T Let’s be honest now, old Tom is one hell of a groomer!

Q “How now! Where’s that mongrel?”
– King Lear, Act 3, Scene 7
T Hold on now, just because it’s our first litter is no reason to get nasty!

Q “How now, you dog!”
– King Lear, Act 3, Scene 7
T Well Casey, are you going to show for me today?

Q “They flattered me like a dog; and told me I
had white hairs in my beard ere the black ones were there.”
– King Lear, Act 4, Scene 6
T He definitely has color.

Q “Unmanner’d dog! stand thou, when I command …”
–King Richard III, Act 1, Scene 2
T Must be a Kerry in the obedience ring.

Q “Stay, dog, for thou shalt hear me.”
– King Richard III, Act 1, Scene 3
T The long stay is tough with a Kerry.

Q “That dog, that had his teeth before his eyes …”
– King Richard III, Act 4, Scene 4
T He must be an import.

Q “Talks as familiarly of roaring lions
As maids of thirteen do of puppy-dogs!”
– King John, Act 2, Scene 1
T She looks quite mature for a junior handler.

Q “Nay, it perchance will sparkle in your eyes;
And like a dog that is compell’d to fight,
Snatch at his master that doth tarre him on.”
– King John, Act 4, Scene 1
T You never spar with an import in the ring!

Q “I am the fellow with the great belly, and he my dog.”
– King Henry IV, Part ii, Act 1, Scene 2
T Have you met my handler?

Q “For the fifth Harry from curb’d licence plucks
The muzzle of restraint, and the wild dog
Shall flesh his tooth on every innocent.”
– King Henry IV, Act 4, Scene 5
T I’ve been in that ring!

Q “’Solus,’ egregious dog?”
– King Henry V, Act 2, Scene 1
T I told you, this Judge only picks handlers!

Q “Let gallows gape for dog; let man go free
And let not hemp his wind-pipe suffocate…”
– King Henry V, Act 3, Scene 6
T Wow! Talk about a rough Bench Show Committee.

Q “Which, as I take it, is a kind of puppy to the old dam, treason,–“
– King Henry VIII, Act 1, Scene 1
T Yea, Old Treason was a great brood bitch.

Q “I think Crab, my dog, be the sourest-natured dog that lives..”
– The Two Gentlemen of Verona, Act 2, Scene 3
T He just doesn’t want to show today.

Q “I am the dog: no, the dog is himself, and I am the dog—
Oh! the dog is me, and I am myself; ay, so,so.”
– The Two Gentlemen of Verona, Act 2, Scene 3
T You’ve really got to get a life!

Q “Now the dog all this while sheds not a tear nor
speaks a word; but see how I lay the dust with my tears.”
– The Two Gentlemen of Verona, Act 2, Scene 3
T Take it easy Sam, you can’t expect to win them all. Besides — it’s only a Dog Show.

Q “Why, he that’s tied here, Crab, my dog.”
– The Two Gentlemen of Verona, Act 2, Scene 5
T I just hate holding someone’s dog ringside.

Q “Ask my dog: if he say ay, it will!
if he say no, it will; if he shake his tail
and say nothing, it will.”
– The Two Gentlemen of Verona, Act 2, Scene 5
T How do you think you’ll do with this Judge?

Q “Gone to seek his dog; which tomorrow, by his master’s command, he must carry for a present to his lady.”
– The Two Gentlemen of Verona, Act 4, Scene 2
T She is supposed to pick him up at the grooming tent.

Q “I have taught him, even as one would say
precisely, ‘thus I would teach a dog.’”
– The Two Gentlemen of Verona, Act 4, Scene 4
T The new handler works well with Casey.

Q “I would have, as one should say,
one that takes upon him to be a dog indeed,
to be, as it were, a dog at all things.”
– The Two Gentlemen of Verona, Act 4, Scene 4
T CH, CDX, CGC, AX, AXJ, HX, ME, MXJ, TDX, UDX …… I’m impressed Sam!

Q “’Out with the dog!’ says one:
‘What cur is that?’ says another:
‘Whip him out’ says the third:”
– The Two Gentlemen of Verona, Act 4, Scene 4
T I thought having three Judges for the Futurity would eliminate these outbursts.

Q “’Friend,’ quoth I, ‘you mean to whip the dog?’”
– The Two Gentlemen of Verona, Act 4, Scene 4
T That’s going to get you suspended.

Q “Marry, she says your dog was a cur, and tells you currish thanks is good enough for such a present.”
– The Two Gentlemen of Verona, Act 4, Scene 4
T I don’t think she considers him to be the “pick of the litter”.

Q “.. and then I offered her mine own, who is a dog as big as ten of yours, and therefore the gift the
greater.”
– The Two Gentlemen of Verona, Act 4, Scene 4
T I told you not to breed to that line.

Q “O Buckingham, take heed of yonder dog!” !
– King Richard III, Act 1, Scene 3
T Come on Judge, give us a break

Q “I would not lose the dog for twenty pound.”
– The Taming of the Shrew, Prologue, Scene 1
T I don’t think that pup is for sale.

Q “Trust me, I take him for the better dog.”
– The Taming of the Shrew, Prologue, Scene 1
T That’s not the one that I would have picked!

Q “Where’s my spaniel, Troilus?”
– The Taming of the Shrew, Act 4, Scene 1
T I get annoyed with these all-breed handlers at a big show.

Q “She had transform’d me to a curtal dog and made me turn i’ the wheel.” The original picture was done by the artist Persis Kirmse in 1934.
– The Comedy of Errors, Act 3, Scene 2
T I told you, always be careful when walking the dog on a bike path!

Q “Out, dog! Out, cur! Thou drivest me past the
bounds Of maiden’s patience.”
– A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Act 3, Scene 2
T Talk about a picky Judge.

Q “This man, with lanthorn, dog, and bush of thorn, presenteth Moonshine”
– A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Act 5, Scene 1
T Sam, you’ve just got to work harder at conditioning Moonshine’s coat.

Q “… and this dog, my dog.”
– A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Act 5, Scene 1
T Now that was a great breeding!

Q “There are a sort of men whose visages
Do cream and mantle like a standing pond,
And do a wilful stillness entertain,
With purpose to be dress’d in an opinion
Of wisdom, gravity, profound conceit,
As who should say ‘I am Sir Oracle,
And when I ope my lips let no dog bark!’”
-- The Merchant of Venice, Act 1, Scene 1
T Couldn’t he just say ‘Please control your dogs’?

Q “’Hath a dog money? is it possible
A cur can lend three thousand ducats?’”
– The Merchant of Venice, Act 1, Scene 3
T That much just to take him into the ring at Montgomery?

Q “O, be thou damn’d, inexecrable dog!”
– The Merchant of Venice, Act 4, Scene 1
T Down, Casey!

Q “’Tis your fault, ’tis your fault; ’tis a good dog.”
– The Merry Wives of Windsor, Act 1, Scene 1
T That does it! I’m getting a new handler!

Q “Sir, he’s a good dog, and a fair dog: can there be more said?”
– The Merry Wives of Windsor, Act 1, Scene 1
T I think my breeding program speaks for itself.

Q “I’ll have my brains ta’en out and buttered, and give them to a dog for a new-year’s gift.”
– The Merry Wives of Windsor, Act 3, Scene 5
T I’ve had it with dog shows!

Q “An he had been a dog that should have howled
thus, they would have hanged him: and I pray
God his bad voice bode no mischief.”
– Much Ado About Nothing, Act 2, Scene 3
T No point in arguing with a Judge.

Q “Get you with him, you old dog.”
– As You Like It, Act 1, Scene 1
T Hurry, the Veteran’s class is next.

Q “An you love me, let’s do’t: I am dog at a catch.”
– Twelfth Night, Act 2, Scene 3
T Come on! Toss the ball again.

Q “Lay hands on him; a dog!”
– Cymbeline, Act 5, Scene 3
T Judge, the AKC rep says we need to speed things up a bit!

Q “A pox o’ your throat, you bawling, blasphemous, incharitable dog!”
– The Tempest, Act 1, Scene 1
T Not on my new rug!

Q “Hang, cur! hang, you whoreson, insolent noisemaker!”
– The Tempest, Act 1, Scene 1
T That barking is driving me nuts!

Q “I shall laugh myself to death at this puppy-headed monster.”
– The Tempest, Act 2, Scene 2
T I take it that you don’t really like her little bitch.

Q “Ay, like a black dog, as the saying is.”
– Titus Andronicus, Act 4, Scene 2
T But Judge, he’s still a puppy!

Q “Away, inhuman dog!”
– Titus Andronicus, Act5, Scene 3
T He disqualified the dog!

Q “A dog of the house of Montague moves me.”
– Romeo and Juliet, Act 1, Scene 1
T I might consider breeding to him.

Q “ … and dog will have his day.”
– Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, Act 5, Scene 1
T He might have a shot at Group.

Q “O inhuman dog!”
– Othello, The Moor of Venice, Act 5, Scene 1
T I can’t believe he did that in the ring.

Q “Thy mother’s of my generation: what’s she, if I be a dog?”
– Timon of Athens, Act 1, Scene 1
T I don’t think you should go there Harry!

Q “Away, unpeaceable dog, or I’ll spurn thee hence!”
– Timon of Athens, Act 1, Scene 1
T I don’t think you should show to him again.

Q “Thou art a slave, whom Fortune’s tender arm
With favour never clasp’d; but bred a dog.”
-- Timon of Athens, Act 4, Scene 3
T I tell you, there’s no money in breeding.

Q “’Tis, then, because thou dost not keep a dog,
Whom I would imitate: consumption catch thee!”
– Timon of Athens, Act 4, Scene 3
T You can’t be a Kerry owner unless you were a Kerry owner, got it?

Q “I understand thee; thou hadst some means to keep a dog.”
– Timon of Athens, Act 4, Scene 3
T Yes I have a fenced yard. Does that mean I can have the puppy?

Q “Away, thou issue of a mangy dog!”
– Timon of Athens, Act 4, Scene 3
T I told you, I only breed show dogs!

Q “Fillet of a fenny snake,
In the cauldron boil and bake;
Eye of newt and toe of frog,
Wool of bat and tongue of dog,
Adder’s fork and blind-worm’s sting,
Lizard’s leg and owlet’s wing,
For a charm of powerful trouble,
Like a hell-broth boil and bubble.”
– Macbeth, Act 4, Scene 1
T I’ve really had it up to here with these fad diets from California. What’s wrong with good old Purina Dog Chow?

Q “Turn, hell-hound, turn!”
– Macbeth, Act 5, Scene 8
T Sorry Judge, I’ll face my dog in the other direction.

Q “Patience is Scottish, and impatience does
Become a dog that’s mad:”
– Antony and Cleopatra, Act 4, Scene 15
T Interesting choices in the Group ring today.

Q “Against him first: he’s a very dog to the commonalty.”
– Coriolanus, Act 1, Scene 1
T I’m really not impressed by the Winners Dog.

Q “He like a thievish dog creeps sadly thence;”
– The Rape of Lucrece, Stanza 106
T Number 23 seems just a bit shy to me.

Q “My curtail dog, that wont to have play’d
Plays not at all, but seems afraid;”
– The Passionate Pilgrim, Sonnet 18, XVIII.
T Some dogs just will not spar.

Fin