From School Library Journal
Adult/High School - A light and insightful look at the world from a dog's point of view. The canine talks about his relationships with everyone in the family, plus neighbors, newspaper and mail deliverers, other animals, and household appliances such as the vacuum. The vet is the "Man Who Stings Your Hip," while there are several aliases for that best friend, including "He Who Sleeps on the Couch," "He Who Scratches Unscratchable Places," and "He Who Leaves the Seat Up So You Can Drink." Simple thumbnail drawings are peppered throughout the book. This romp will be a hit with teens who have a dog or wish they did. It breeds chuckles and understanding. - Karen Sokol, Fairfax County Public Schools, VA
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Book Description
A hilarious, captivating commentary that gives us--finally--a true dog’s-eye view of the world.
• The Sofa: “The sofa is Position One. The sofa makes you feel as if you are with your people even when your people are gone.”
• The Toilet: “The advantage of drinking from the toilet is that the water is always fresh.”
• The Baby: “Often known as She Who Randomly Flings Food from the Table, the baby has the most flavorful, ever-changing face of all your people.”
“After reading You Are a Dog, you will start thinking like a dog.” --Bash Dibra, celebrity pet trainer and author of DogSpeak
“You Are a Dog should be the talk of every dog run in the U.S. With humor, and more bite than one might expect, Terry Bain helps us to see the world through the eyes of our dogs, and to look at their lives in fresh and insightful ways.” --Jon Katz, author of A Dog Year, The New Work of Dogs, and The Dogs of Bedlam Farm
“Terry Bain has cracked the canine code to demystify those charming, endearing, and occasionally bizarre habits our beloved dogs exhibit. You Are a Dog is equal parts witty and warm, sweet and sympathetic--read this and be destined to meet your dog at a richer, deeper level.”--Dr. Marty Becker, veterinary contributor for Good Morning America, author of The Healing Power of Pets
• The Sofa: “The sofa is Position One. The sofa makes you feel as if you are with your people even when your people are gone.”
• The Toilet: “The advantage of drinking from the toilet is that the water is always fresh.”
• The Baby: “Often known as She Who Randomly Flings Food from the Table, the baby has the most flavorful, ever-changing face of all your people.”
“After reading You Are a Dog, you will start thinking like a dog.” --Bash Dibra, celebrity pet trainer and author of DogSpeak
“You Are a Dog should be the talk of every dog run in the U.S. With humor, and more bite than one might expect, Terry Bain helps us to see the world through the eyes of our dogs, and to look at their lives in fresh and insightful ways.” --Jon Katz, author of A Dog Year, The New Work of Dogs, and The Dogs of Bedlam Farm
“Terry Bain has cracked the canine code to demystify those charming, endearing, and occasionally bizarre habits our beloved dogs exhibit. You Are a Dog is equal parts witty and warm, sweet and sympathetic--read this and be destined to meet your dog at a richer, deeper level.”--Dr. Marty Becker, veterinary contributor for Good Morning America, author of The Healing Power of Pets
About the Author
TERRY BAIN (aka He Who Leaves the Seat Up So That You Might Drink) wrote this book when he should have been throwing the tennis ball. He is a freelance writer, book designer, and teacher. He won an O. Henry Award for short fiction and was named a Book Magazine Newcomer in 2003. He lives in a modest pack in Spokane, Washington, that includes his wife, two children, two dogs, and a cat.
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
Chapter 1
identifying you
You are somewhat embarrassed. An entire book? About you? What must have they been thinking?
Name
They call you Dog. They call you Rex and Rover and Spike and Ishmael. You are Clive and Spot and Sparky and Belvedere and Lucy and Gracie and Princess. And you are none of these. You are just you. You have only one name for yourself. It has no translation into speakable, human words, but if it were translated into speakable, human words, it would come closest to "You."
You do not identify yourself with the other names that have been given you (Jack, Bootsie, Stanley, Sadie, Blackie, Patrice), by your people or by others (Ruff Ruff, Pretzel, Duchess), though you do recognize that these are meant to be names, of a sort, but in that troubling language that makes little sense to you. You wonder, sometimes, how people communicate at all.
These are some of the names that have recently been given you that, though not your true name, are human approximations, and you admit that though humans are confusing and confounding, they are worth having, so you respond to these names immediately and enthusiastically. Here they are. Not all of them. Just some of them. Here:
Dog
Not actually a name so much as a designation, your people, or some other people who are not your people, will nevertheless call you this upon occasion, and it is one of the names you recognize. She Who Seldom Drops Food on the Floor might say something like this: "You are a dog." You are sitting before her, waiting for her to drop food on the floor. You are in the kitchen, examining the process of slicing cheese. She Who Seldom Drops Foodon the Floor is slicing cheese and placing the slices into sandwiches for the children (and sandwiches for the children are always a good source of found or otherwise coerced food).
She does not throw you a slice of cheese. Instead she crosses the kitchen and says, "You are a dog." She comes directly toward you, and you watch her closely. "Move," she says. She pushes you out of the way because she knows that if she doesn't, you will continue to wait there and she won't be able to get to the sink. When she returns to the cutting board from the sink, you are sitting instead in front of the cutting board. "Ack," she says. "I said," she says,"didn't you hear me . . . ? Go lie down. I'm not giving you any cheese." She pushes you again-a nudge, actually, with her knee-and tosses a corner of cheese into the dining room that she knows you will follow. Apparently you did just what she wanted you to do. Cheese is your favorite and most treasured reward.
Pup
They sometimes call you Pup. You pretend not to know that the name is diminutive, that it means anything other than respect and love. Which is, of course, exactly what it means. You can tell by the intonation that the name is diminutive, that it is affectionate. Especially when He Who Calls You Pup calls you Pup, when he rubs your head and calls you Pup and then scratches your jowls and puts his face in your face, at which time you lick his cheeks and nose (and he often allows this), still scratching, still making the sound that comes from somewhere deep inside him that means, "love love and love." He can call you whatever he likes and you will lick him and he will feed you and call you Pup.
Pooch
Of all the names. What does this mean? You don't like the sound of it, though you try not to show that you don't like the sound of it. Seldom will you show any kind of offense to this name. Seldom, actually, do you show any kind of offense to anything, except when offense is first offered by a cat. Then you will return the utmost offense to the cat by ignoring her. The cat does not understand this as offense, though, because cats, though beautiful,are crazy.
Mutt
What? Do they know who they are talking to? Mutt? Did he say Mutt? Or did he drop something? What was that? What an odd thing. Is that a name? It sounds like a noise. Like an expression of what it is. Like a dropped wet towel. What an odd thing.
Sound
They have another name for you that they use most often (Sam, Chevy, Pete), and you understand this is what they think your real name is (Sheba, Abby, Nestle). You know that when they call you this name and you come to them immediately, you will receive some kind of reward from one of your people, such as their attention or a handful of kibble or a small cut-up piece of hot dog (though this last is very rare).
Except, of course, sometimes you will not get a reward. Sometimes when they call you and you think you are going to be rewarded, they are actually going to put you outside because they are leaving for the day and they expect you to stay outside without them. They will be gone all day, and they tell you this in their ridiculous people language, so that you do not know what it is they are saying...though you understand the tone of voice means they are leaving, and you imagine they will be gone for many many years, and in fact you may never see them again, so you go to the gate and you lie where you can be seen as they leave but where it will not be suspected that you plan to escape or chew a child's toy into such small pieces that the toy will be unidentifiable. You are deciding now, as they leave, if you should choose escape or toy. Escape or toy.
Has it been a few moments since they've been gone or a few hours?
What's the difference? And what is that?
Water falling from the sky.
You are being punished for your thoughts. You must ask for forgiveness. You must seek shelter.
The Hours
You have been outside for many hours. It has rained, but now the sun is out and the wind is blowing. You bite at the wind. You wait at the gate when you are not barking at a cat or squirrel or tree branch. They will be home any minute or they will be gone for days. They will be gone forever, and you will never be fed again and you will have to find your own food. Every minute you are aware that they might never return. Every minute you are aware that they could be home any second. Any second now. Is that them? No. Not them. Still not them.
Memory
You are the original dog. You are every dog and no dog. What kind of dog are you? You are the kind who can remember your ancestors, can remember your mother, can remember your mother's mother, can remember your mother's mother's mother. It is not difficult to have this kind of memory. You understand that it is difficult for many species to remember. But for you it is impossible to think of yourself without thinking of all your past, of the village mothers and fathers who were original dogs, original people companions, living with and alongside and among the people. Helping them. You know that you are helping. You are glad to be helping. What would they be without you?
Some dogs, you know, find it difficult to remember their past, to have any kind of relationship with Those Who Came Before. Some of these dogs are even distantly related to you, but they do not recognize this, and therefore do not indicate any knowledge of common ancestry. You wish you could show them somehow that there is no need to forget everything just to live with humans. There is no need to act so stupid.
You wonder if they can live full lives without this memory. You wonder if something is missing in them. Something quintessentially dog must be missing. You always treat these dogs as nicely as possible, and you try not to stare. You feel sorry for them, and you hope it doesn't show when you do stare, or you hope it doesn't show that you are trying not to stare when you are trying not to stare.
Your People
To keep track of your people, you have many names for them. Most of these names are sense names. They are sight and sound and smell names. Again, these cannot be truly translated, but you have some reasonable approximations, which you are happy to share.
Your People's Names
Your People
Those Who Would Bathe You
He Who Would Bathe You Quickly So as to Get It Over With
Those Who Would Feed You
Those Who Would Pet You
He Who Would Scratch Unscratchable Places
She Who Would Walk You Off the Lead
He Who Would Throw the Ball but for Whom You Will Not Drop the Ball
She Who Would Refill the Water Dish
He Who Smells of Garlic, Tastes of Salt, and Will Let You Lick His Feet
She Who Does Not Allow Licking Ever
She Who Drops Food from Her Plate
He Who Leaves the Seat Up So That You Might Drink
Sensenames
Dog names are too complex as translated into the language of your people. Though each is translated into words above, to prevent confusion, there are no real "words" associated with each name in your mind, and the concept of a name being translated into words is foreign to you. The association is sense only, and the sense is remembered in the organ that senses it: odor in your nose or touch in your skin or taste on your tongue or sight in your eyes or sound in your ears or knowledge (gnosis) way deep down in your dogness.
The Sense of Gnosis
You have a sense that you are pretty sure your people do not have, and it is the sense of gnosis, or knowledge. It is difficult to describe to those who do not experience it firsthand, but it is the most reliable of all your senses. You feel it in the most reliable of places. You feel it in the part of you that makes you You. You feel it in your dogness. You are a dog, and all dogs have this sense, and all dogs have access to this dogness. Not all dogs use this access, however; it has been worn away by time and the lack of need for it. It has been worn away by indiscriminate and unlikely misuse.
Your People
Each of your people has several individual sense names, but this is not confusing to you, because it is not a matter for your brain, as you've already mentioned, but a matter of sense memory.
He Who Leaves the Seat Up So That You Mig...
identifying you
You are somewhat embarrassed. An entire book? About you? What must have they been thinking?
Name
They call you Dog. They call you Rex and Rover and Spike and Ishmael. You are Clive and Spot and Sparky and Belvedere and Lucy and Gracie and Princess. And you are none of these. You are just you. You have only one name for yourself. It has no translation into speakable, human words, but if it were translated into speakable, human words, it would come closest to "You."
You do not identify yourself with the other names that have been given you (Jack, Bootsie, Stanley, Sadie, Blackie, Patrice), by your people or by others (Ruff Ruff, Pretzel, Duchess), though you do recognize that these are meant to be names, of a sort, but in that troubling language that makes little sense to you. You wonder, sometimes, how people communicate at all.
These are some of the names that have recently been given you that, though not your true name, are human approximations, and you admit that though humans are confusing and confounding, they are worth having, so you respond to these names immediately and enthusiastically. Here they are. Not all of them. Just some of them. Here:
Dog
Not actually a name so much as a designation, your people, or some other people who are not your people, will nevertheless call you this upon occasion, and it is one of the names you recognize. She Who Seldom Drops Food on the Floor might say something like this: "You are a dog." You are sitting before her, waiting for her to drop food on the floor. You are in the kitchen, examining the process of slicing cheese. She Who Seldom Drops Foodon the Floor is slicing cheese and placing the slices into sandwiches for the children (and sandwiches for the children are always a good source of found or otherwise coerced food).
She does not throw you a slice of cheese. Instead she crosses the kitchen and says, "You are a dog." She comes directly toward you, and you watch her closely. "Move," she says. She pushes you out of the way because she knows that if she doesn't, you will continue to wait there and she won't be able to get to the sink. When she returns to the cutting board from the sink, you are sitting instead in front of the cutting board. "Ack," she says. "I said," she says,"didn't you hear me . . . ? Go lie down. I'm not giving you any cheese." She pushes you again-a nudge, actually, with her knee-and tosses a corner of cheese into the dining room that she knows you will follow. Apparently you did just what she wanted you to do. Cheese is your favorite and most treasured reward.
Pup
They sometimes call you Pup. You pretend not to know that the name is diminutive, that it means anything other than respect and love. Which is, of course, exactly what it means. You can tell by the intonation that the name is diminutive, that it is affectionate. Especially when He Who Calls You Pup calls you Pup, when he rubs your head and calls you Pup and then scratches your jowls and puts his face in your face, at which time you lick his cheeks and nose (and he often allows this), still scratching, still making the sound that comes from somewhere deep inside him that means, "love love and love." He can call you whatever he likes and you will lick him and he will feed you and call you Pup.
Pooch
Of all the names. What does this mean? You don't like the sound of it, though you try not to show that you don't like the sound of it. Seldom will you show any kind of offense to this name. Seldom, actually, do you show any kind of offense to anything, except when offense is first offered by a cat. Then you will return the utmost offense to the cat by ignoring her. The cat does not understand this as offense, though, because cats, though beautiful,are crazy.
Mutt
What? Do they know who they are talking to? Mutt? Did he say Mutt? Or did he drop something? What was that? What an odd thing. Is that a name? It sounds like a noise. Like an expression of what it is. Like a dropped wet towel. What an odd thing.
Sound
They have another name for you that they use most often (Sam, Chevy, Pete), and you understand this is what they think your real name is (Sheba, Abby, Nestle). You know that when they call you this name and you come to them immediately, you will receive some kind of reward from one of your people, such as their attention or a handful of kibble or a small cut-up piece of hot dog (though this last is very rare).
Except, of course, sometimes you will not get a reward. Sometimes when they call you and you think you are going to be rewarded, they are actually going to put you outside because they are leaving for the day and they expect you to stay outside without them. They will be gone all day, and they tell you this in their ridiculous people language, so that you do not know what it is they are saying...though you understand the tone of voice means they are leaving, and you imagine they will be gone for many many years, and in fact you may never see them again, so you go to the gate and you lie where you can be seen as they leave but where it will not be suspected that you plan to escape or chew a child's toy into such small pieces that the toy will be unidentifiable. You are deciding now, as they leave, if you should choose escape or toy. Escape or toy.
Has it been a few moments since they've been gone or a few hours?
What's the difference? And what is that?
Water falling from the sky.
You are being punished for your thoughts. You must ask for forgiveness. You must seek shelter.
The Hours
You have been outside for many hours. It has rained, but now the sun is out and the wind is blowing. You bite at the wind. You wait at the gate when you are not barking at a cat or squirrel or tree branch. They will be home any minute or they will be gone for days. They will be gone forever, and you will never be fed again and you will have to find your own food. Every minute you are aware that they might never return. Every minute you are aware that they could be home any second. Any second now. Is that them? No. Not them. Still not them.
Memory
You are the original dog. You are every dog and no dog. What kind of dog are you? You are the kind who can remember your ancestors, can remember your mother, can remember your mother's mother, can remember your mother's mother's mother. It is not difficult to have this kind of memory. You understand that it is difficult for many species to remember. But for you it is impossible to think of yourself without thinking of all your past, of the village mothers and fathers who were original dogs, original people companions, living with and alongside and among the people. Helping them. You know that you are helping. You are glad to be helping. What would they be without you?
Some dogs, you know, find it difficult to remember their past, to have any kind of relationship with Those Who Came Before. Some of these dogs are even distantly related to you, but they do not recognize this, and therefore do not indicate any knowledge of common ancestry. You wish you could show them somehow that there is no need to forget everything just to live with humans. There is no need to act so stupid.
You wonder if they can live full lives without this memory. You wonder if something is missing in them. Something quintessentially dog must be missing. You always treat these dogs as nicely as possible, and you try not to stare. You feel sorry for them, and you hope it doesn't show when you do stare, or you hope it doesn't show that you are trying not to stare when you are trying not to stare.
Your People
To keep track of your people, you have many names for them. Most of these names are sense names. They are sight and sound and smell names. Again, these cannot be truly translated, but you have some reasonable approximations, which you are happy to share.
Your People's Names
Your People
Those Who Would Bathe You
He Who Would Bathe You Quickly So as to Get It Over With
Those Who Would Feed You
Those Who Would Pet You
He Who Would Scratch Unscratchable Places
She Who Would Walk You Off the Lead
He Who Would Throw the Ball but for Whom You Will Not Drop the Ball
She Who Would Refill the Water Dish
He Who Smells of Garlic, Tastes of Salt, and Will Let You Lick His Feet
She Who Does Not Allow Licking Ever
She Who Drops Food from Her Plate
He Who Leaves the Seat Up So That You Might Drink
Sensenames
Dog names are too complex as translated into the language of your people. Though each is translated into words above, to prevent confusion, there are no real "words" associated with each name in your mind, and the concept of a name being translated into words is foreign to you. The association is sense only, and the sense is remembered in the organ that senses it: odor in your nose or touch in your skin or taste on your tongue or sight in your eyes or sound in your ears or knowledge (gnosis) way deep down in your dogness.
The Sense of Gnosis
You have a sense that you are pretty sure your people do not have, and it is the sense of gnosis, or knowledge. It is difficult to describe to those who do not experience it firsthand, but it is the most reliable of all your senses. You feel it in the most reliable of places. You feel it in the part of you that makes you You. You feel it in your dogness. You are a dog, and all dogs have this sense, and all dogs have access to this dogness. Not all dogs use this access, however; it has been worn away by time and the lack of need for it. It has been worn away by indiscriminate and unlikely misuse.
Your People
Each of your people has several individual sense names, but this is not confusing to you, because it is not a matter for your brain, as you've already mentioned, but a matter of sense memory.
He Who Leaves the Seat Up So That You Mig...
