The Critter and Other Dogs Quotes

“All my life I have made an intensive study of dogs. Thirty years ago I knew everything about them that could be known, and much more. After three decades of much closer study of them and their ways, I find to my dismay that I know almost nothing at all about them. I have scarcely scratched the surface. That is not false modesty. It is sickeningly true.

The sum total of my canine knowledge and experience and observation is this: Anything can happen; and usually it does.”
― Albert Payson Terhune, The Critter and Other Dogs

“It is all a gorgeous gamble, this breeding of pedigreed dogs. Therein lies its lure. When our prophecies come true, it is fun to boast. When they fail—which is oftener—silence is very golden indeed.”
― Albert Payson Terhune, The Critter and Other Dogs

“Meanwhile I was teaching him, by patient training, the few needful things I wanted him to learn. Also I was giving him sweeping uphill gallops to deepen his chest and broaden his shoulders and establish his straightness of limb and complete bodily poise I sought for him. Incidentally, I was giving him two raw eggs and a pound of fresh raw beef a day, in addition to his regular kennel rations of bread and milk and bones, and I was grooming his blanket-like coat as one would groom a racehorse.”
― Albert Payson Terhune, The Critter and Other Dogs