A little more than a third of this book is about Buff, the titular collie dog. The other short stories mostly feature collies, a few have some other type of dog. I think it was the first time I’ve encountered that in a Terhune book. They’re darn good stories, well-told and interesting, in spite of being old fashioned in language and stereotypes. Some racism and some exaggerated, untrue statements. For example: that a collie dog is faster than all other dogs except the greyhound. Um, not quite. I looked it up: Borzois, Afghan hounds, whippets, Vizsla, dalmations, and salukis are all faster than collies! I am not sure if the author just didn’t know about these other dogs’ top speeds, or if he liked to boast about collie powress. Just like in the other books, the author goes on a few rants about motor cars, the evils of vivisection, and the irrationality of mad-dog scares (with healthy animals often needlessly destroyed). The dogs in his stories don’t talk or have abilities beyond their nature, but they do some incredible things sometimes- one stops to randomly herd sheep and cows that a stranger is having difficulty controlling, while he’s roaming out lost, looking for someone. Just up and helps the man out, with excellent display of skill. Another dog knew unerringly when his family was returning home from travel, even when his car was still miles away, and seemed to ‘know’ when his beloved owner far away, met with tragedy. He howled and grieved and everyone marveled at it (when they found out later what had happened). Dogs in other stories go on incredible journeys, help track down criminals, save children from falling through the ice in winter, lead the household to a person lost and injured in the woods, and perform other feats of bravery, usually showing high intelligence.
One of my favorite stories was about a poor “hillbilly” family that owned a collie mix (he looked like a collie but had a broader head and other features that indicated mixed heritage). When the mistress fell ill and was taking a long time to recover, the doctor encouraged the husband to find something to cheer her up. Knowing she was inordinately proud of the dog, he took it into town and entered it in a dog show. He was irate and insulted when the dog was dismissed from the class for “not being a collie.” They wouldn’t even give him the third-place ribbon, and there were only two other dogs in that novice class. So he stormed out and bought a trophy cup from a silversmith (which had flaws in its making so reduced price), had it inscribed, and brought it back to the show to display to his dog and then take them home. Some reporters who came through, not knowing anything about dogs or dog shows, saw him with the silver cup, assumed he’d won it properly, and put a picture of them in the paper! I was cracking up at that one.
Another story featured a boxer who wasn’t the greatest fighter but had been taught lots of tricks to pull fake fouls on his opponents, and thus win against men he really had no chance otherwise. He obtained a collie dog, and at some point witnessed it fight against a larger, tougher, more experienced dog. He was impressed that his dog wouldn’t “play foul” – it beat the bigger dog when something turned to its advantage, but then didn’t attack it when the other dog got knocked nearly senseless, and let it run off without chasing it. So now the owner determined not to let a dog be better than him, and follow its example and win his next fight fairly! To the utter dismay of his manager. In spite of all the descriptions of fighting (men and dogs), I liked this one. (There was actually so much fighting – slashing and dodging- in this book, it reminded me a lot of Jack London stories).
Yet another story was about a kid who ran away after loosing some money he’d been entrusted with to put in the bank for his parents. He was ashamed to go back home, thinking he’d be blamed for the loss, and decided the best course of action was to find a job in the city until he’d saved up enough to replace the money. But he couldn’t get an actual job, ended up carrying luggage for people at the train station to earn tips, that’s it. He slept in a crate a ways off the roadside, and was befriended by two stray dogs. Shared his meager food with them, taught them some little tricks, and took comfort in their company. He thought he could still make things work out, until his dogs were picked up by the pound. What an awful story of how this pound was managed! The dogs were kept in a huge open pen, which was right on the end of the docks. There was a large crane out there with an iron-barred cage. At the end of every week, unwanted dogs were stuffed into the cage and it was lowered into the water until they drowned en masse. The boy was heartbroken to find his dogs locked up, and desperate to get them out, except he could barely save a few pennies a week. Then his father showed up . . . a good ending, with lots of forgiveness, and the dogs saved just in the nick of time.
More stories of course, but I will not write them all here so I have something to surprise myself with when years from now I read this book again, having forgotten them again.
