Is it just coincidence that “dog” spelled backwards is “god”? And is it simply a quirk of fate that so many famous writers were devoted to their dogs and relied on them to lighten the burden of solitariness that dogs (no pun intended) every writer? If you’re a dog lover, you know life is impoverished without a dog and immeasurably enriched with one. 

Over the years I’ve shared my life with many beloved dogs. Those periods where for various reasons I couldn’t have one, felt diminished, as if there was something elemental missing from the world (like the sun). I survived but it was a dark, broody and far too introspective an existence. The writing life could be described in similar terms. It demands that you isolate yourself from all distractions, cut yourself off from social interaction and endure hours cooped up in a room somewhere engaged in a fraught debate with the page that you despair of ever winning, one which is always confounded by the most debilitating self-doubt. It’s not a job for the faint of heart. 

A writer who knows this well is Helen Humphreys. In her book “And a Dog Called Fig: Solitude, Connection and the Writing Life” published in March 2022, she writes “Being a writer is confusing because it is both lonely and all-consuming. It is no surprise to me that writers often suffer from mental health issues or substance abuse issues or even kill themselves. It is hard to stay healthy in a profession that has so much instability and failure built into it. It is hard to remain in the state of vulnerability necessary for creation, while also handling the demands of life”. 

She also understands the magical power of a dog that sits beside you in the darkest hours and by their gentle presence reminds you that no matter what a crock of garbage you’re producing, you’re loved and needed, you’re not alone and, however many rejections you get, you’re not a failure in their eyes. Her book documents the life she shared with her writing companion, Fig, her third Vizsla, who came into her life as a puppy and at first (as puppies will) filled her life with chaos, mess and anything but quiet companionship. 

Fig (named for her colour which, the author describes as like a ripe Calimyrna fig), rather than facilitating Humphrey’s creative flow, fights it with every snap of “her mouth full of tiny knives”. 

Puppyhood is, like babyhood, a testing phase which, once successfully navigated, leads to good dogs and good children. It’s the good, grown-up dogs who come to be the cherished witnesses to our writing struggles, and what makes Humphreys’ book especially engaging are the delightful anecdotes of famous writer/dog pairings over the years.

There is Virgina Woolf and her mongrel terrier Grizzle who was Woolf’s dog from 1919 to 1926. Although Woolf had other dogs, Grizzle, who was adopted from the Battersea Dogs’ Home, was a special favourite, to the extent she is mentioned in the following diary passage: “And the truth is, one can’t write directly about the soul. Looked at, it vanishes: but look at the ceiling, at Grizzle … and the soul slips in.” (Only Woolf could have written that!)

And Thomas Hardy, whose fox terrier Wessex (or Wessie as he was known), despite his bad behaviour (which included biting John Galsworthy’s leg) became so beloved of his master that Hardy kissed him goodnight every night and after Wessie’s death at the age of 13 wrote two poems about him. Here is part of “A Popular Personage at Home” written from Wessex’s point of view.

‘I live here: “Wessex” is my name:
I am a dog known rather well:
I guard the house but how that came
To be my whim I cannot tell.

‘With a leap and a heart elate I go
At the end of an hour’s expectancy
To take a walk of a mile or so
With the folk I let live here with me.”

E.B. White, best known as the author of the children’s book “Charlotte’s Web” had a number of dogs, but the one he apparently remembered most fondly was Fred, a dachshund, who White wrote about often both during Fred’s life and after his death. White remarked that some dogs make such an impression on us that they live on vividly even after death, something attested to by the photographs, memorials and gravestone adorned backyard burial plots of many dog lovers I know. White wrote many essays and letters about dogs, some of which are compiled in the book “E.B. White on Dogs”.

James Thurber was a great dog lover too, who owned many dogs, the most famous of which was Muggs, an Airedale terrier who was an even more intractable biter than Hardy’s Wessex, to the extent Thurber dedicated a story to him called “The Dog That Bit People”. (I empathise with Hardy and Thurber. It is a decided social liability to have a dog that bites people, as I discovered with my Border Terrier Toby, who I always hasten to reassure people only bites from his excitement at seeing them, not from malice. Last seen tattered of trouser leg and threatening to sue, the delivery man he chased down the front path one day wasn’t convinced.)

Humphreys also talks about Gertrude Stein’s and Alice Toklas’s dogs, noting that they had “three white poodles in succession”. In fact, they only had two, plus one Majorcan hound and two Mexican chihuahuas. (I can state this with the authority of hefty research conducted with the novel in mind. Even with the novel out of mind, it’s so gratifying to have one small area of expertise that when the occasion demands, must be taken out and dusted off.)

Gertrude and Alice were almost as famous for their dogs as for their renowned Parisian salon. Their first dog was a reddish-brown Majorcan hound called Polybe who ate flowers and was untrainable. In the mid-1920s they bought a white poodle at a Parisian dog show which they curiously christened Basket apparently because Alice thought he looked so fashionable he should be carrying a basket of flowers in his mouth. Basket rapidly outgrew any flower carrying inclinations and ended up the size of a small sheep. He became as much of a celebrity as his mistresses, being painted and photographed by many famous names including Cecil Beaton and Man Ray. Basket was later joined by Byron, a Mexican chihuahua, who according to Stein’s description in her book  “Everybody’s Autobiography” “was very fierce and tender and he danced strange little war dances and frightened Basket”. After his death Byron was succeeded by Pépé, another chihuahua who “was a nice little dog” and loved by Basket.

When Basket died in 1937, he was replaced with another poodle named Basket II (no poetical allusion apparently suggesting itself this time). Basket II was considerably more robust than his predecessors and in fact lived on until 1952. Alice, who looked after him in the years following Stein’s death in 1946, is quoted as saying in a letter to Carl Van Vechten “…for some time I have realized how much I depended upon him and so it is the beginning of living for the rest of my days without anyone who is dependent upon me for anything”. That says so much about the reciprocal dependency between ourselves and our dogs. We need them for many reasons, but one is certainly that fundamental human desire to be needed.

Gertrude Stein bequeathed many memorable quotes to the world, quite a few of them about dogs. One that resonates especially with me is this – “One has a great deal of pleasure out of dogs because one can spoil them as one cannot spoil one’s children. If the children are spoiled, one’s future is spoilt but dogs one can spoil without any thought of the future and that is a great pleasure”.

 

Writers and dogs are natural companions. As Humphreys writes, “the kind of intimacy that a dog offers is perhaps ideal for a writer, because intimacy with other humans often takes the writer away from their work, while intimacy with a dog brings the writer closer to their work.”

The journey with a dog from puppyhood to end of life is one that brings immeasurable joys and sorrows, but also inevitably shows us the world in a different guise. Looking through the eyes of a different being, one who is intimately connected to us, expands our consciousness in ways we never would have imagined.  Humphreys puts it well. “Each new thing I introduce to her is something I know the value of, is something of meaning for me. So, at almost sixty, it feels a bit miraculous to make the world new again, for Fig and for myself.”

Much research has been documented about the benefits of dog ownership, (or to put it into the words of dog people) the innate rewards of loving dogs. It’s self- evident that dogs mitigate loneliness and social isolation and encourage us to exercise and mix with others, but as explained by the American Kennel Club they also reduce blood pressure, alleviate stress and lessen the risk of coronary disease. It’s also been shown that dogs help us cope with crises, relieve the symptoms of PTSD, and as is now widely recognised have an important therapeutic role in helping the aged, the visually impaired and the physically and mentally disabled.

But, important as all those advantages are, there is something more elemental. Their presence in our lives is a gift, the true value of which we only fully realise when they’re gone. People talk about the unconditional love a dog gives us, the loyalty, the happiness, the companionship. But, as Humphreys so eloquently writes “Here’s what I wonder: after a lifetime spent with dogs, where they have been the single biggest influence on my work and my life, do they make us better, or do they simply return us to who we are?”

Molly Wizenberg is another writer who loved an adopted dog, Alice, of unknown parentage. In a moving article she wrote about their relationship called “On Alice“, she says “I don’t believe that dogs are sent to Earth for us humans. I don’t believe that their purpose is to serve us, or to teach us anything. Alice was a being of her own. She was an animal who lived in our house! with us!, miracle of miracles!

Dog miracles are sometimes fleeting and must be looked for with all our senses. I can’t forget something written by Nabokov, quoted by Elizabeth Hardwicke in her essay on him – “And one day we shall recall all this—the lindens, and the shadows on the wall, and a poodle’s unclipped claws tapping over the flagstones of the night.” It’s the tapping of the claws, the touch of a wet nose, the brush of warm fur against the hand that stay with us when the dogs we loved are gone. 

Coincidentally as I write this, today is International Dog Day, a fitting day to think about our dogs, known and unknown, here and no longer here, and thank them for the miracles they give us every day.