The Trouble With Tuck (1981)

The Trouble With Tuck
Theodore Taylor
1981, Doubleday

And if there was anything better to hold than a pup, I don't know what it was. I put him up to my shoulder, against my neck, and his warm tongue swabbed the lobe of my ear. His new fur was like velvet. A love affair began that hour.

It's early 1950's Los Angeles, and 10-year-old Helen Ogden is a shy girl lacking self-confidence. One day, her parents present her with a fat gold Labrador Retriever puppy. Officially christened Friar Tuck Golden Boy, he's just Tuck to Helen. The pair become inseperable, and within a short time Tuck has saved her life twice, once from a pervert in the park and once from drowning in a pool.

But 1956 is different. Tuck, now over three, runs through a screen door and the family begins to wonder if his eyesight is okay. When the vet says Tuck is going blind, there are few alternatives. Helen, miserable at how her beloved dog is suffering from having his freedom curtailed, comes up with an idea nobody thinks will work - get her blind dog a guide dog of his own.

At first, the guide dog organization gently tells Helen that their dogs are far too valuable to be used with another dog. But then a unique situation occurs, and Helen has her chance to use the German Shepherd guide dog Lady Daisy. The only question left is how to train the obdurate, jealous Tuck to put up with a canine housemate and follow a guide.

The free-running Tuck's easy off-leash social life is an anachronism that somewhat confuses the big problem of the book. Today, a family dog in suburbia wouldn't be allowed to run loose, and the only problem involved with having a blind dog would be making sure nobody touched him unexpectedly. The scene where Tuck saves Helen from a pervert in a fog-bound park is scary as hell because of the realism of the scene. Where today a narrator would vague out into "And then everything seemed to slow down and I was thinking of bluebirds." Helen faithfully recounts every last detail of the attack.

Clearly written, with a consistent character voice and appealing heroine and dogs.

Dogs
Friar Tuck Golden Boy - golden Lab with Dudley nose
Lady Daisy - German Shepherd


About the author
1921-2006
The North Carolina native wrote over 50 books. A high school dropout (math issue, my sympathies) he went on to become a press agent and screenwriter in Hollywood. His most famous book was the 1969 YA novel The Cay.

Other Books by the author
There are far too many to list; most relevant is the 1992 sequel, Tuck Triumphant.

Links
Author website
LA Times obituary

Editions


Avon Camelot, 1981 Yearling

Also, an unknown edition cover

Adopt a Shelter Dog!

from Marguerite Henry's Album of Dogs, illustrations by Wesley Dennis

Adopt a shelter dog in 2010 and get free dog food from Pedigree! Details here.

Please choose a good shelter and use your head as well as your heart in choosing a pet. There are many homeless dogs out there, and many of them are not right for various homes. Owning a dog should be a joy, not a grim duty. Your priority is not to prevent a dog from being euthanized, it's to acquire a lifelong friend and companion. Do research on local shelters, because there are some bad ones out there that should not be encouraged to stay in operation. Find one that honestly attempts to weed out aggressive and unhealthy dogs, does a thorough but reasonable background check of hopeful adopters, does some vet work (at the very least, a rabies shot), and has a clean facility.

Pedigree, of course, is the dog food manufacturer who did those heartbreaking commercials a few years back featuring shelter dogs and a voice-over by David Duchovny.

No reviews at the moment, but here's an old magazine cover that fits the snow-covered world outside so many windows tonight.


Note: the November 2009 post about The Good Luck Dog by Lilo Hess has been updated with photos.

The Spuddy (1974)

The Spuddy

Lillian Beckwith

1974, Hutchinson & Co. (UK),1976, Delacorte Press (US)

Despite his hybridism (Joe used to say his coat looked as if someone had dipped him in a barrel of glue and then emptied a flock mattress over him) the dog had an air of self-assurance emphasized by an arrogantly held head and a long droop of a setter-like tail which, as he moved with his easy sauntering gait, swung from side to side with the stateliness of an ermine cloak.

Andy is nine, and lonely. His father is a merchant seaman, away for long stretches of time, and his mother has run off with another man. Worst of all, Andy is mute. Shipped off to stay with his aunt and uncle in a fishing village, Andy strikes up a friendship with an abandoned dog, a grey-black mongrel named The Spuddy. His relatives are kind, but forbid him to keep the dog at home, putting Andy to some trouble to provide for his new friend. But it's worth it to the abandoned boy.

As he walked toward him the Spuddy sat watching, cautiously assessing the boy's approach. Andy saw the dog's ears twitch, the tail begin to wave, and most comforting of all, the eyes brighten with welcome. Love and gratefulness surged through Andy. He began to feel wanted again and he bent down and let the Spuddy lick his ear before they raced off happily toward the open moors.

The two soon befriend Jake, skipper of the Silver Crest. Jake should be a happily married man with a baby son, but his wife has essentially abandoned him to go live with her parents, and he's lonely too. The mutt turns out to have a nose for sniffing out fish, and Jake's luck begins to turn.

It's notable that the women in this book are all villains. The aunt comes off best, but she's the one who refuses to let Andy keep the dog at home. The men are all gruff, baffled victims of feminine whims, and you get the sense that everyone on the fishing boats prefer the wild and woolly seas to the drama of the hearth.

A well-written adventure which is curiously muffled, as Andy and the dog don't speak, and much of the plot is related as a story, not shown as action.

About the Author

1916-2004

Her real name was Lillian Comber. She and her husband moved to the Isle of Skye in 1942, and several of her books were based on her life there. They moved to the Isle of Man in 1962.

Other Books - based on Skye

The Hills is Lonely

The Sea for Breakfast

The Loud Halo

A Rope - In Case

Lightly Poached

Beautiful Just!

Bruach Blend

Other Books

Green Hand

A Shine Of Rainbows

A Proper Woman

The Small Party

An Island Apart

A Breath of Autumn

Bay Of Strangers - short stories

About My Father's Business - autobiography

Links

Obituary

Links for the Skye books

Wiki about the Hebrides

Tales From A Dog Catcher

Lisa Duffy-Korpics

2009, The Lyons Press (Globe Pequot)

A collection of anecdotes from the author's career in the 1980s-1990s as a young animal officer in the police department of a small city in New York state. She encounters a serial killer Great Dane mix, a Houdini Wheaten Terrier, a pair of curious raccoons, a flock of turkeys and assorted other animals wild and domestic.

The story of Manny, a streetwise Dane mix whose hobby seems to be to entice other dogs to play in traffic with lethal results, is chilling. The story of a groundhog who pulls a fast one inside the author's police car is hysterical. Most of the other tales are pleasant but predictable, and suffer from the author's perspective as a very young woman at the time.

A few stories - the Schnauzer depressed after his owner's death, the German Shepherd condemmed to death for biting a kid - are classic animal story pathos of misunderstood creatures, heartless owners and caring but powerless animal professionals. The Schnauzer story in particular annoyed me. The dead man's relations claimed the Schnauzer, an aged but relatively healthy dog, was aggressive toward anyone but the owner, and wanted the dog euthanized. The author and various coworkers, whose experience of the dog was limited to seeing it A) grief-stricken over its owner's corpse and B) depressed after the owner was taken away, quickly jump on the bandwagon that the dog, who hasn't shown them any aggression, is a great dog and the relatives are heartless jerks who want to euthanize the dog to tie up loose ends. Maybe. Or maybe the dog was always a jerk when the owner was around. I've known several dogs who were snotty when their owners were around but butter wouldn't melt in their mouths when Mommy or Daddy are absent. The relatives genuinely may not have believed the dog could change. And the dog may have been responding to the energy of a bunch of cops, all of whom are likely not shrinking violets, and wisely deciding not to act up, wheras back in a normal household he'd have reverted.

She does make one interesting observation, however, when a dying man giving up his pet cat to the shelter comments that the kind of person who adopts an animal from a shelter is going to be the kind of person who takes care of the animal.

I had never thought of it that way. I had always been fixated on trying to take care of everything myself, using the shelter as a last resort. I hadn't thought about the people who go to the shelter and deliberately choose to adopt a pet that didn't have a home. There were many of them. I saw them there all the time, yet I hadn't given them a second thought.... In some ways I had blinders on, with the single goal of controlling everything myself. Even if my intentions were good, it was emotionally exhausting. It was selfish, even narcissistic of me to think that I was the only one who could make things better.

A common issue in shelter and rescue is the volunteer who has the good intentions and love of animals, but whose actions tend to be so controlling, so convinced that only they truly care, that they can end up doing their organization more harm than good.

Overall, an enjoyable book, and one adorable cover dog.

Links

Author blog

Illustrators

Part of the reason I have such a fondness for children's books, even as an adult, is their illustrations. And animal stories always seem to get the very best pictures.

Jock's Island by Elizabeth Coatsworth, illustrations by Lilian Obligado

Lad, A Dog by Albert Payson Terhune, illustrations by Sam Savitt (special edition)

Album Of Dogs by Marguerite Henry, illustrations by Wesley Dennis

A Tree For Peter by Kate Seredy

The Good Luck Dog

The Good Luck Dog

Lilo Hess, author and photographer

1985, Charles Scribners' Sons

A shaggy small dog is stolen off his owner's porch and ends up sold to a laboratory. In the nick of time, he's saved from a horrible fate when an employee discovers he's been tattooed - and the lab has a policy against using tattooed animals, as it indicates they are probably pets. Sent to a shelter, he's adopted by a little boy who names him Skeeter and who is disappointed when he's unable to train the little terrier to act like a beagle. When he gets the chance to acquire a Beagle, the boy passes the pup on to a little deaf girl, who has him trained as a hearing aid dog. The initially think the little dog is a mutt, but learn that he's really a purebred Tibetan Terrier - and Heather enters him in AKC obedience trials.

A short book which is more photo-essay than novel, with brief and inelequent writing stuffed full of obvious propaganda. I don't disagree with most of the 'message' - chained dogs are unhappy, tattooing a dog provides protection against theft, etc. - but I find the flat, dull style and unapologetic pedantry unforgivable.

Dogs

Kah-Loo/Skeeter - male Tibetan Terrier

About the Author

Born in Germany, Hess grew up in Berlin and came to America in 1938. In 1939, she did PR pictures for Frank Buck, the famous animal collector whose slogan was "bring 'em back alive." Her photography and writing were featured in American magazines including Life.

Links

Lilo Hess Museum & Gallery

Other books
A Dog By Your Side

Life Begins For Puppies

A Pony To Love

Shetland Ponies

Diary Of A Rabbit

Making Friends With Guinea Pigs

A Cat's Nine Lives

Bird Companions

Christine, The Baby Chimp

The Amazing Earthworm

Animals That Hide, Imitate And Bluff

The Curious Raccoons

A Family Of Foxes

Fawn In The Woods

Foxes In The Woodshed

Listen To Your Kitten Purr

Mouse And Company

The Misunderstood Skunk

Odd Pets