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A Dog Named Chips: The Life and Adventures of a Mongrel Scamp
Among the most famous and best-loved dog stories ever written are the supurb stories of Albert Payson Terhune. The classic story, A Dog Named Chips, first published in 1931, is now available in a new large-print version.
Born a ragamuffin mongrel, Chips had a longing for purple and fine linen, for all the luxuries of a millionaire's world. Escaping from home in a sports car, he insinuated himself into the heart of the ninth richest woman in America, dominated her household, patched up a budding romance, and even got himself abducted and held for ransom.
But the climax of his career came in a brief visit to the Philadelphia dog pound. As a result of this excursion into unknown territory, Chips presented his unsuspecting mistress with a litter of seven.
In the end, Chips received her final triumph -- a new and royal name -- "Cleopatra, formerly Chips". Hilarious and exciting, this is a book for every dog lover.
Kindle Edition
First published January 1, 1931
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68 people want to read
About the author
Albert Payson Terhune
329 books75 followersAlbert Payson Terhune (1872 - 1942), a local author of some fame, wrote numerous adventures about Collies, most notably, "Lad, A Dog", "Sunnybank: Home of Lad", and "Further Adventures of Lad". Sunnybank, his home on the eastern shore of Pompton Lakes in northern New Jersey, was originally the home of Terhune's parents, Edward Payson Terhune and Mary Virginia Hawes Terhune. Later as his home with his wife, Anice Stockton Terhune, Sunnybank became famous as "The Place" in the many stories of Terhune. Much of the land once constituting the Sunnybank estate was lost to developers in the 1960's with the house being demolished in 1969. Fortunately though, the central 9.6 acres was preserved through the dedicated efforts of Terhune fans and dog fanciers, and is now Terhune Sunnybank Memorial Park, administered by the Wayne Township Parks Department.
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Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews
November 10, 2012
Fun story with a surprise at the end. Hopefully, one of my grand kids will enjoy this book someday.
June 25, 2014
Being a fan of Albert Payson Terhune's books since my childhood, I thought that I had previously read every one of his dog stories. Not so.
The simple story line is good juvenile fiction, though the vocabulary was surprisingly sophisticated. Internecine, harangue,jocund... these words aren't on most 5th grade spelling/comprehension word lists nowadays but perhaps they were in 1931. Still, as an adult I enjoyed meeting one of APT's furry friends, not a collie, but a unique, canine personality nonetheless. Enjoy.
The simple story line is good juvenile fiction, though the vocabulary was surprisingly sophisticated. Internecine, harangue,jocund... these words aren't on most 5th grade spelling/comprehension word lists nowadays but perhaps they were in 1931. Still, as an adult I enjoyed meeting one of APT's furry friends, not a collie, but a unique, canine personality nonetheless. Enjoy.
June 30, 2021
What a wild bunch of adventures of a very bad dog! Nice twist at the end. Good old fashioned dog story about a mutt for a change. Terhune is known for his gallant collie stories. This one was quite different. Fun though!
May 26, 2023
I have read many of Albert Payson Terhune's dog stories and most of them so far were of his own personal stories, Lad and others. This story is pure fiction as he stated,
Highlight (Yellow) | Location 12
Who gave me the suggestion for a fiction dog with the queer own-your-own-soul nature of my hero, CHIPS: and in whose magazine, The Ladies’ Home Journal these stories first saw the light of day.
I enjoyed this story about Chips which was quite comical and cute, Chips was indeed tiresome in character yet there was never a dull moment. The ending twist was quite surprising and not surprising because a dog hating old rich maid was in the equation. I look forward to reading more of Terhune's books, I especially love to read one every May to remember Blondie, our sweet dog who is in Heaven, I am sure!
This exchange below shows how nature is nature no matter how humans try to change something that is unnatural, especially in today's society trying to change what nature and God, and what animals know to be the truth about males and females.
Highlight (Yellow) | Location 1383
The mischievously leering grin of the mongrel and the fixedness of his sniffing stare began to do things to the overtense nerves beneath Blayne’s stolid exterior. There was something about Chips’s leer which puzzled and worried the new servant. For Blayne was in a chronic state of mind to be worried by trifles. To put a merciful end to the element of suspense, this is as good a time as any to clear up the mystery of Chips’s wide-mouthed grin and
Highlight (Yellow) and Note | Location 1387
of his regarding Blayne as a highly entertaining joke. He had every reason for appreciating the rare jest. For he knew that this tall and bony and big-featured woman was no woman at all, but a man in woman’s attire. Any dog can tell instantly a man from a woman. Costume has less than nothing to do with this recognition. To canines, a man in woman’s garb is a man, even as a woman dressed in masculine raiment is still a woman. It is wholly a
Highlight (Yellow) | Location 1391
matter of scent. A dog receives his impressions through the nostrils rather than through the eyes.
➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖
➿➿➿➿➿➿➿➿➿➿➿➿➿➿➿➿➿➿➿➿➿➿➿➿➿➿➿➿➿➿➿➿➿➿➿➿
Highlight (Yellow) | Location 21
It was the little doglet under the vender’s right arm that drew the bulk of such attention as passers-by bestowed. For she had the wistfulest eyes and the pudgiest body and
Highlight (Yellow) | Location 22
the most appealingly lovable air imaginable. Mrs. Johannes Crake was piloting her two children through the milling sidewalk throng, on the way to the Pennsylvania Station and thence to her suburban home, at the end of a nerve-frazzling day of shopping.
Highlight (Yellow) | Location 26
Oblivious of her absent-minded commands to get into motion again, Carlie and Stella Crake were staring upward in rapt interest at the two pups under the mangy man’s arms.
Highlight (Yellow) | Location 38
Carlie burst into a torrent of high-pitched pleading. The gist of his harangue was that if he could have that grand puppy for Stella and himself he wouldn’t ask for a single other Christmas present; and that if he could not have it, then mamma might as well throw away any Yule gifts she might be planning for him, for he wouldn’t touch one of them.
Highlight (Yellow) | Location 59
“Hey!” spake the bibulous fat man. “How about us taking up a little collection and getting the pup for the kids, if their mommer can’t afford to? I’ll lead off with a two-spot. I sure do hate to see a kid cry. Especially ’round Christmas-time. How about it?” Throughout the crowd there was a semi-general movement toward cash pockets. The two children sought to smile in cherubic gratitude on the fat man. They succeeded in achieving a resemblance to two smugly hypocritical little gargoyles. Mrs. Johannes Crake’s plump visage deepened from pink to red, from red to blackened purple. Devoutly she prayed there might be no
Highlight (Yellow) | Location 64
people from her own suburb in the tight-packed crowd about them. It was bad enough to be made hideously conspicuous like this by her two spoiled children, right here in a public street, without having a collection taken up for their benefit. She went dizzy with the infuriating shame of it. To cut short the nightmare experience in the quickest and easiest and cheapest way, she opened her wristbag, yanked therefrom a ten-dollar bill, thrust it loathingly at the vender, and permitted him to lower
Highlight (Yellow) | Location 68
the fuzzy little wisp of doghood into the avidly upstretched arms of Carlie and Stella—who well-nigh dismembered the luckless puppy by struggling with each other for the bliss of carrying him.
Highlight (Yellow) | Location 71
They called on mamma to arbitrate. But mamma was past speech. She was conserving such few energies as she still had, for the ensuing clash with Johannes Crake over her mushiness in letting herself be whipsawed into buying a pedigreeless she-dog. For this and for the task of explaining to her sister-in-law how she had chanced to borrow an eleven-dollar umbrella without asking leave, and then how she had been so abominably careless as to lose it somewhere.
Highlight (Yellow) | Location 86
Suppose we let it go at that, except to say{11} that the blameless storm-center
Highlight (Yellow) | Location 87
center of the wholesale family squabble was a bewildered and hungry and thirsty and frightened and homesick baby female puppy, a puppy alternately mauled and neglected by its two juvenile owners, and scorned by everyone else under the Crake roof. A pure-bred dog of the same age would have died from the neglect or would have developed running fits from the mauling. But most mongrels are uncannily hardy, even as the best of them are uncannily clever.
Highlight (Yellow) | Location 93
This cook saw the grievous plight of the unwanted and ill-treated Babe Ruth. Surreptitiously she sneaked huge nourishing platefuls of table scraps, daily, to the
Highlight (Yellow) | Location 94
puppy’s packing-box kennel behind the Crake home. Yes, and when the Crakes were absent the cook would tiptoe over to the kennel and gather the unhappy pup into her ample arms and croon to her and pet her and feed her red bits of steak-end and the like.
Highlight (Yellow) | Location 100
So matters went on for the greater part of a year. The once-fluffy and appealing bunch of puppyhood was a leggy cur. It would have taken a clairvoyant, rather than a dog expert, to tell what breeds had gone
Highlight (Yellow) | Location 102
into the make-up of Babe Ruth’s cosmos.
❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌spoiler alert
Babe Ruth was dealt a bad card when she started life with the selfish and cruel Crakes. Ruth surviving her attempted murder by drowning and finding a family that loved and appreciated her but her puppy was of a different type. Chips who left the farm to live the life of high society was quite comical. I loved how she was credited for doing things to help others but deep down she was always looking out for number one. I was surprised that Chips was a female and a pregnant one was such a twist, that made her more likable, for Chips was tiresome in all her selfish ways. What would Chips had done if she had been left with the Crakes, I think she would have caused trouble there and left them. Chips knowing the lady's maid was a man was priceless, it shows how dogs are not so dumb as some call them. The police dog next door is probably the father of the pups. I wonder if she will be a good mother or a really good mother to her pups?
Highlight (Yellow) | Location 104
A professional dog-fancier would have sneered at her, as did Johannes Crake. A man or woman in whose brain was the understanding of dog-nature would have welcomed
Highlight (Yellow) | Location 105
her eagerly as a pal and would have developed the latent wisdom and loveliness of her nature and would have made her supremely happy.
Highlight (Yellow) | Location 110
“Here’s where I do what you’ve been at me to do. I’d have done it long ago if it wasn’t that the brats both bawled so every time I hinted at it. I knew if I got rid of her, they wouldn’t give us any peace till we got them another. And the other, most likely, would have been no better than this one when it grew up. But I’ve been watching both of them for quite a while. And I had a
Highlight (Yellow) | Location 113
talk with them tonight before they went to bed. They’re sick and tired of the mutt. They want a couple of rabbits instead. They told me so. They promised to give up Babe Ruth if I’d promise to bring them home the rabbits from New York tomorrow night.
Highlight (Yellow) | Location 116
“It was bad enough to have this cur on our hands, and having folks laugh at us for owning such a dog. But in another few days there’ll be a full half-dozen more mutts, just like
Highlight (Yellow) | Location 117
her or maybe worse, if we don’t get rid of her. I’m taking her for a ride. Don’t sit up for me.”
Highlight (Yellow) | Location 12
Who gave me the suggestion for a fiction dog with the queer own-your-own-soul nature of my hero, CHIPS: and in whose magazine, The Ladies’ Home Journal these stories first saw the light of day.
I enjoyed this story about Chips which was quite comical and cute, Chips was indeed tiresome in character yet there was never a dull moment. The ending twist was quite surprising and not surprising because a dog hating old rich maid was in the equation. I look forward to reading more of Terhune's books, I especially love to read one every May to remember Blondie, our sweet dog who is in Heaven, I am sure!
This exchange below shows how nature is nature no matter how humans try to change something that is unnatural, especially in today's society trying to change what nature and God, and what animals know to be the truth about males and females.
Highlight (Yellow) | Location 1383
The mischievously leering grin of the mongrel and the fixedness of his sniffing stare began to do things to the overtense nerves beneath Blayne’s stolid exterior. There was something about Chips’s leer which puzzled and worried the new servant. For Blayne was in a chronic state of mind to be worried by trifles. To put a merciful end to the element of suspense, this is as good a time as any to clear up the mystery of Chips’s wide-mouthed grin and
Highlight (Yellow) and Note | Location 1387
of his regarding Blayne as a highly entertaining joke. He had every reason for appreciating the rare jest. For he knew that this tall and bony and big-featured woman was no woman at all, but a man in woman’s attire. Any dog can tell instantly a man from a woman. Costume has less than nothing to do with this recognition. To canines, a man in woman’s garb is a man, even as a woman dressed in masculine raiment is still a woman. It is wholly a
Highlight (Yellow) | Location 1391
matter of scent. A dog receives his impressions through the nostrils rather than through the eyes.
➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖
➿➿➿➿➿➿➿➿➿➿➿➿➿➿➿➿➿➿➿➿➿➿➿➿➿➿➿➿➿➿➿➿➿➿➿➿
Highlight (Yellow) | Location 21
It was the little doglet under the vender’s right arm that drew the bulk of such attention as passers-by bestowed. For she had the wistfulest eyes and the pudgiest body and
Highlight (Yellow) | Location 22
the most appealingly lovable air imaginable. Mrs. Johannes Crake was piloting her two children through the milling sidewalk throng, on the way to the Pennsylvania Station and thence to her suburban home, at the end of a nerve-frazzling day of shopping.
Highlight (Yellow) | Location 26
Oblivious of her absent-minded commands to get into motion again, Carlie and Stella Crake were staring upward in rapt interest at the two pups under the mangy man’s arms.
Highlight (Yellow) | Location 38
Carlie burst into a torrent of high-pitched pleading. The gist of his harangue was that if he could have that grand puppy for Stella and himself he wouldn’t ask for a single other Christmas present; and that if he could not have it, then mamma might as well throw away any Yule gifts she might be planning for him, for he wouldn’t touch one of them.
Highlight (Yellow) | Location 59
“Hey!” spake the bibulous fat man. “How about us taking up a little collection and getting the pup for the kids, if their mommer can’t afford to? I’ll lead off with a two-spot. I sure do hate to see a kid cry. Especially ’round Christmas-time. How about it?” Throughout the crowd there was a semi-general movement toward cash pockets. The two children sought to smile in cherubic gratitude on the fat man. They succeeded in achieving a resemblance to two smugly hypocritical little gargoyles. Mrs. Johannes Crake’s plump visage deepened from pink to red, from red to blackened purple. Devoutly she prayed there might be no
Highlight (Yellow) | Location 64
people from her own suburb in the tight-packed crowd about them. It was bad enough to be made hideously conspicuous like this by her two spoiled children, right here in a public street, without having a collection taken up for their benefit. She went dizzy with the infuriating shame of it. To cut short the nightmare experience in the quickest and easiest and cheapest way, she opened her wristbag, yanked therefrom a ten-dollar bill, thrust it loathingly at the vender, and permitted him to lower
Highlight (Yellow) | Location 68
the fuzzy little wisp of doghood into the avidly upstretched arms of Carlie and Stella—who well-nigh dismembered the luckless puppy by struggling with each other for the bliss of carrying him.
Highlight (Yellow) | Location 71
They called on mamma to arbitrate. But mamma was past speech. She was conserving such few energies as she still had, for the ensuing clash with Johannes Crake over her mushiness in letting herself be whipsawed into buying a pedigreeless she-dog. For this and for the task of explaining to her sister-in-law how she had chanced to borrow an eleven-dollar umbrella without asking leave, and then how she had been so abominably careless as to lose it somewhere.
Highlight (Yellow) | Location 86
Suppose we let it go at that, except to say{11} that the blameless storm-center
Highlight (Yellow) | Location 87
center of the wholesale family squabble was a bewildered and hungry and thirsty and frightened and homesick baby female puppy, a puppy alternately mauled and neglected by its two juvenile owners, and scorned by everyone else under the Crake roof. A pure-bred dog of the same age would have died from the neglect or would have developed running fits from the mauling. But most mongrels are uncannily hardy, even as the best of them are uncannily clever.
Highlight (Yellow) | Location 93
This cook saw the grievous plight of the unwanted and ill-treated Babe Ruth. Surreptitiously she sneaked huge nourishing platefuls of table scraps, daily, to the
Highlight (Yellow) | Location 94
puppy’s packing-box kennel behind the Crake home. Yes, and when the Crakes were absent the cook would tiptoe over to the kennel and gather the unhappy pup into her ample arms and croon to her and pet her and feed her red bits of steak-end and the like.
Highlight (Yellow) | Location 100
So matters went on for the greater part of a year. The once-fluffy and appealing bunch of puppyhood was a leggy cur. It would have taken a clairvoyant, rather than a dog expert, to tell what breeds had gone
Highlight (Yellow) | Location 102
into the make-up of Babe Ruth’s cosmos.
❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌spoiler alert
Babe Ruth was dealt a bad card when she started life with the selfish and cruel Crakes. Ruth surviving her attempted murder by drowning and finding a family that loved and appreciated her but her puppy was of a different type. Chips who left the farm to live the life of high society was quite comical. I loved how she was credited for doing things to help others but deep down she was always looking out for number one. I was surprised that Chips was a female and a pregnant one was such a twist, that made her more likable, for Chips was tiresome in all her selfish ways. What would Chips had done if she had been left with the Crakes, I think she would have caused trouble there and left them. Chips knowing the lady's maid was a man was priceless, it shows how dogs are not so dumb as some call them. The police dog next door is probably the father of the pups. I wonder if she will be a good mother or a really good mother to her pups?
Highlight (Yellow) | Location 104
A professional dog-fancier would have sneered at her, as did Johannes Crake. A man or woman in whose brain was the understanding of dog-nature would have welcomed
Highlight (Yellow) | Location 105
her eagerly as a pal and would have developed the latent wisdom and loveliness of her nature and would have made her supremely happy.
Highlight (Yellow) | Location 110
“Here’s where I do what you’ve been at me to do. I’d have done it long ago if it wasn’t that the brats both bawled so every time I hinted at it. I knew if I got rid of her, they wouldn’t give us any peace till we got them another. And the other, most likely, would have been no better than this one when it grew up. But I’ve been watching both of them for quite a while. And I had a
Highlight (Yellow) | Location 113
talk with them tonight before they went to bed. They’re sick and tired of the mutt. They want a couple of rabbits instead. They told me so. They promised to give up Babe Ruth if I’d promise to bring them home the rabbits from New York tomorrow night.
Highlight (Yellow) | Location 116
“It was bad enough to have this cur on our hands, and having folks laugh at us for owning such a dog. But in another few days there’ll be a full half-dozen more mutts, just like
Highlight (Yellow) | Location 117
her or maybe worse, if we don’t get rid of her. I’m taking her for a ride. Don’t sit up for me.”
January 22, 2015
I really loved this story, I Always tought it would not be one of my favorites because there is not a collie in it. But I'm gladly surprised. I loved the leading lady in this book and her adoration for Chips
May 8, 2017
This is a wonderfully cute little book. If you need a lift and a quick read, this is it. If you want an entertaining book for your children, this is it. If you're going through a rough time and need to smile.... this is definitely it.
This short story in this small book has given me a goal. I will never be a Grand Dame of society nor will I ever be a rich old lady. But, an old lady I will be, if God chooses. I hope to be as irascible as Miss Garrod. With my family history I have said, since being in my late 20s, that I may very well live to be into my 90s and if I do they will be the naughty 90s.
As for a dog knowing the better man, my dog helped me choose my husband. I was casually dating two men. One was rather wealthy and nice enough; the other was a short-haul truck driver and also was 'splendidly square'.
My dog was near as big of a scamp a Chips, though not so destructive. Sugar was just ad unconquerable spirit, always wanting to play and chase her ball. Before either man came over, I would kick the ball down the cellar steps and Sugar would frantically run down, find where the ball had gone and run it back up the steps. I would do this 100 times and still, it wasn't enough! When the man of the evening came, there would be that constant aggravating pleading to play, play, play. You could tell that the one man was irritated and no one could blame him. Even considering Sugar's unquenchable thirst for action, man number one did not appear to be dog-friendly. But my Larry would be here 15 minutes outside playing with Sugar before he rang the doorbell! When I apologized he would always say, "No, no. This is the kind of dog you want!" And further, Larry, straight as an arrow, would have made the same confession to the old Miss as Graeme had done.
I lost my Larry suddenly last year but I will be forever thankful I had for the nearly 20 years we had together. When Sugar developed cancer we were each other's rock. Thank you Sugar for the years of exuberance and… for Larry.
"The nation's news-dispensers have scant respect for the sanctity of rank... " Fortunately, I believe that still applies to some of that major news organizations. The sad thing is that, currently, there are so many so-called news organizations that pander to printing the most outlandish lies because that's what so many "selective readers" choose to believe. It seems that always, these corrupt believers are true haters of someone, some group or some twisted ideology. Hitler used hateful propaganda exactly these kind of people. More recently, look at the completely insane lies about Hillary Clinton only an absolute fool could credibility to. Such as the guy who broke into the family pizza shop to seek out the child slavery ring in the basement. There are a lot of nuts out there. I will never understand these people so filled with hate.
This short story in this small book has given me a goal. I will never be a Grand Dame of society nor will I ever be a rich old lady. But, an old lady I will be, if God chooses. I hope to be as irascible as Miss Garrod. With my family history I have said, since being in my late 20s, that I may very well live to be into my 90s and if I do they will be the naughty 90s.
As for a dog knowing the better man, my dog helped me choose my husband. I was casually dating two men. One was rather wealthy and nice enough; the other was a short-haul truck driver and also was 'splendidly square'.
My dog was near as big of a scamp a Chips, though not so destructive. Sugar was just ad unconquerable spirit, always wanting to play and chase her ball. Before either man came over, I would kick the ball down the cellar steps and Sugar would frantically run down, find where the ball had gone and run it back up the steps. I would do this 100 times and still, it wasn't enough! When the man of the evening came, there would be that constant aggravating pleading to play, play, play. You could tell that the one man was irritated and no one could blame him. Even considering Sugar's unquenchable thirst for action, man number one did not appear to be dog-friendly. But my Larry would be here 15 minutes outside playing with Sugar before he rang the doorbell! When I apologized he would always say, "No, no. This is the kind of dog you want!" And further, Larry, straight as an arrow, would have made the same confession to the old Miss as Graeme had done.
I lost my Larry suddenly last year but I will be forever thankful I had for the nearly 20 years we had together. When Sugar developed cancer we were each other's rock. Thank you Sugar for the years of exuberance and… for Larry.
"The nation's news-dispensers have scant respect for the sanctity of rank... " Fortunately, I believe that still applies to some of that major news organizations. The sad thing is that, currently, there are so many so-called news organizations that pander to printing the most outlandish lies because that's what so many "selective readers" choose to believe. It seems that always, these corrupt believers are true haters of someone, some group or some twisted ideology. Hitler used hateful propaganda exactly these kind of people. More recently, look at the completely insane lies about Hillary Clinton only an absolute fool could credibility to. Such as the guy who broke into the family pizza shop to seek out the child slavery ring in the basement. There are a lot of nuts out there. I will never understand these people so filled with hate.
March 31, 2022
Very charming book. The background on my reading this book that was published in 1931. It belong to my husband‘s mother, Elizabeth. We inherited all her books at her death. My order from Amazon for more books had not come in. I was looking among her books and stopped at this one. I remember Jim, my husband, saying that his mother read that book to him when he was small and they even named their dog Chips. I was amazed at the difference in the writing style of this book and words that I was not familiar with. Very charming book if you ever run across it. It’s about a dog that is very mischievous but the owner thinks he’s the greatest. Huge twist at the end! Fun read!
October 10, 2017
This book was an overall good book. It is an older book and therefore had some words that society doesn't use anymore. Nice format and transitions well through parts. It only has six chapters/parts but each one averages about 37 pages. The beginning of the story is a bit sad and there is a fight scene that younger readers may not want to see. Abert Payson Terhune does an excellent job of developing the plot, scenery, and characters. Overall excellent book in its day.
March 30, 2021
This is the book that made me trans. Also, as a child, I read so many dog books that real live dogs have been a disappointment to me ever since.
November 29, 2025
A story with an antihero dog. The character I was most reminded of was Flashman.
Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews