Men & Dogs: A Personal History from Bogart to Bowie

by Judith Watt, Peter Dyer

A volume of celebrity pet stories celebrates the friendships between men and their canine companions, in a photographic tribute that describes the relationships between dogs and such individuals as Paul McCartney, Elvis, and James Dean. Original. 30,000 first printing.

Genres: Nonfiction, Dogs

160 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2005

Reviews

[K.D. Absolutely · Rating 2 out of 5]

Oh God, I miss my dog.

And I hate my maid.

Exactly two months ago, I lost my pet dog, a beagle named Beigie who was with me for more than 6 years. On that unfaithful day, he was about to get his bath so our housemaid tied him to the mango tree. However, my brother came and it was the first time my teenage housemaid saw my handsome brother so she got panicky. She did not notice that the dog’s rope got loosened. When the housemaid opened the gate for my breathtakingly good-looking brother to come in, my dog ran off. My housemaid ran after him and ignored my dashing brother. But my dog ran and ran and never came back.

When my wife came home, she texted me: “Beigie ran away. We could not find him.” I was in the office talking business to an officemate. I could not continue our conversation anymore. I could speak. I could not breathe. I became totally sad. I could not go home right away because I needed to stay in the office up to early evening for a scheduled important meeting as we had visitors from our home office that week. I was not able to text back right away. I did not know how to react.

When I arrived home at around 10:00 p.m., I did not go straight home because I tried driving around and around the vicinity of our house. I asked for people if they saw a lost beagle. I asked the policeman, a civilian guard, some bums at the some street corners. I stopped every time I saw a dog even if they looked very different from my dog. I stopped the car every time I heard a dog barking. I tried to remember Beagie’s barks. Are they the same? Could that be my dog barking? Trying to let me know he was there captured inside that house?

We never found him. He never came back. Beagles are known to be hunting dogs. They can sniff their way back to their masters. Maybe he lost his way. Maybe he meant to really run away. Maybe he was not happy with the way we treated him. Or because since many Filipinos eat dog meat, there was a big chance that he was butchered and eaten by bums.

Let’s get another dog, my wife said. No, I said. I am not yet ready, that’s how I felt. I really loved my dog. He was always happy to see me when I came home each night. He was my dog. I was the one bringing him to the veterinarian for his shots and whenever he was sick. I carried him myself to the car. He listened to me whenever he became rowdy. I licked my hands and he always woke up whenever he heard the engine of my car in the morning as if he wanted me to say goodbye to him.

Also, the other reason why I did not want to have another dog was our housemaid. I think that she is still too young to take care of a new dog. As long as our housemaid is still in the house, I will not get another dog, I said to myself. When I saw this book about famous men and their dogs, Men and Dogs: A Personal History from Bogart to Bowie by Judith Watt & Peter Dyer, I bought this right away. The book reminded me of Beigie. However, I could not start reading this and the stories behind man-and-dog friendships reminded me of how I missed Beigie. I only started reading this when I heard from my wife that our housemaid’s last day with us will be next week, Jan 31, 2012. I picked up this book from my to-be-read shelf. I thought I need an inspiration to start a relationship with another dog.

This book is surprisingly a great treat. I came to know a lot of trivias from world-known men-dog relationships. Men here are not ordinary men but the likes of Elvis Presley (with Sweet Pea who inspired the song Hound Dog),Spenser Tracy (whose dog kept vigil beside him at his deathbed and after the funeral, waited at the dog step for his master everyday), Pablo Picasso (and his dachshund who appeared several times on his paintings), Paul Newman (shirtless at a poolside with his wife), James Dean (few months before he died in a car crash), Rudolf Valentino (who I learned was a bisexual), Will Smith (same age as me but with many black Labradors), Mikhail Baryshnikov (the dancer), David Duchovny (of X-files), Kevin Spacey (who bought a dog while in London because he missed his dog back in the US), Kevin Costner (who has 4 yellow Labradors), Sylvester Stallone (whose dog gave him the idea of writing the story of the boxer Rocky so he asked the director to include him in that Oscar-award winning first film), Jim Morrison (who had to send $100 for the dog that he left before he died of drug overdose), Mark Wahlberg (shot in his underwear as the gay pinup, Marky Mark), and Neil Young (who also lost his dog during at the highway during one of his band tour. The whole band waited for seven hours for the dog to come back. Before leaving Young even left his shirt so the dog could find his way back to the place), and others.

But oh, forget about them. I don’t really care about the obvious and inclusion of three presidents (Churchill, J. F. Kennedy and Clinton) since they are already known as dog lovers. The pictures and write-ups that I really stared at and read at least twice were those of my favorite writers.

Roald Dahl – who at the time of his death was writing a novel about a man and his dog who can talk to each other.
Ernest Hemingway – loved his black Labrador gundog that accompanied him in his hunting trips in Cuba.
P. G. Wodehouse – who said at his twilight years that life for him was complete with two real friends, a regular supply of books and his dog Peke.
Ian Fleming – loved his two mongrels who keep by his side while he wrote his James Bond novels.
James Ellroy – one time said that dogs are an obsession for him.
Philip Pullman – who takes home abandoned dogs on the streets.
Truman Capote – who was gifted a bulldog by Humphrey Bogart after their arm wrestle. Effeminate Capote won.
J. R. Ackerley – immortalized his German shepherd Queenie in his novel My Dog Tulip which Christopher Isherwood called “one of the greatest masterpieces of animal literature.”
Tom Wolfe – who lives with dogs and he uses dog characters in his novel to describe a character or a situation. Think of the scene in his Bonfire of the Vanities where the Park Avenue liberal Sherman McCoy has one of the most fashionable dogs of the day, a dachshund, comically named Marshall, whom he drags out in the pouring rain as a pretext when he wants to phone his mistress.

Now I am ready to buy and take care of another dog.

[Barbara · Rating 5 out of 5]

A pictorial view of some famous men and their dogs, including the famous dog Lassie. Since this was published in 2005, I wish there would be a more recent edition, or a book with women and their dogs.

[Cody · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love dogs so I have a fondness for actors who love dogs. You can tell a lot about a man from how he interacts with animals and this book is an interesting look at the famous and their four-legged friends.

I was AMAZED at how much the cover photo looks like Johnny Depp and it's actually Laurence Olivier!