Nice little book about a dog who personally thinks he’s the best dog ever, but is constantly annoyed that his family members call him by different names. The father calls him by his registered name, Tarr (of Belway Smith), but the mother calls him Sweetie, and the boy he’s so attached to, calls him Cerberus. This boy likes to read, and talks with all kinds of fancy words about high adventures (reminding me a tad of Anne from Green Gables!) Tarr gets very jealous when a neighbor’s new dog gets admired by the family and petted when he comes by. Tarr attacks this other dog to drive it off his property, and is soundly scolded by the family. He’s so hurt by this that he runs away. Gets into all kinds of scrapes, of course. Grabbed by dognappers who try to sell him to a man that supplies animals to laboratories, then to a guy who has a pack of hounds, then finally they succeed with a private gentleman who’s looking for a new bird dog. Tarr by this point is tired of getting hauled around by suspicious-acting people, and starts to feel like he should just settle in with this new family, instead of pining for his old one. Even though they call him Blackie.
But then the gentleman takes him out hunting, and finds out pretty quick he’s not a trained dog as was told, on the contrary, he’s actually very gun-shy. Tarr takes off running at the first practice shot, and never looks back. He heads for home (just like a classic Lassie story) but doesn’t make it all the way, gets caught and put in the animal shelter. Where he gloomily watches other dogs come and go. One day it looks like another family with little kids will adopt Tarr, but then surprise! his own original family shows up at the last minute. They’d seen his picture in the paper, featured as Dog of the Week (just like in Scruffy by Jack Stoneley, which I really must read again and write about here someday). Tarr is relieved to finally go home. He bristles at that neighbor dog again without getting scolded now, his family all call him by the proper name, and he gets to laze on the carpet while his boy reads books, without anyone nagging them. Such a nice ending!
Good, brief story on feeling unappreciated, going through difficulties, the hardships a stray dog can experience, and how much he appreciates home when he finally finds it again. Amusingly enough, all the stuff about the dog comparing himself to other dogs (of different breeds) and feeling upset about his name, made me think of this picture book What Color Is Caesar? by Maxine Kumin which I liked so much it’s still on our downstairs hall shelf. I saved a lot of kid chapter and picture books down there when my children both decided they were too old for those anymore. So many I just couldn’t let go of . . . .
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Aww that sounds like a really nice book!
There was a post on Reddit today that made me think of you. Someone from Japan asked if books by Ernest Seton (the person called them “The Seaton Zoological Chronicles”) were popular in the states, too.
Turns out that person made a lot of typos or misremembered things, but eventually I tracked down the series to “Wild Animals I Have Known”. Seemed like books we’d like, though they were published around 1890s-1900s, so they might be hard to track down now.
Yes, Ernest Thompson Seton! I own seventeen of his books (half on my kindle as e-books) and any time I find one I don’t have at a used bookstore or library sale, I snap it up. I’ve reviewed fourteen of them here on the blog (the other three haven’t read them yet). I don’t know the Chronicles he’s referring to- probably a collection of some sort- most of his works are short stories. They’re great. I think you’d really like them. All my copies are old used books or e-books.
This should pull most of them up: https://dogeardiary.com/page/2/?s=by+ernest+thompson+seton or you can look for his name in my author index: https://dogeardiary.com/authors-s/
Ah thanks! I figured you might have heard of him already.