Many Dogs There Be Quotes

“Life is, more or less, a quest for new smells, with always the possibility of running upon the rare scent that will lead to a great adventure. That is why one sniffs so eagerly and with always such an air of intense expectancy.”
― Walter Alden Dyer, Many Dogs There Be

“To Howard’s starved heart this close and voiceless comradeship meant joy unspeakable. It was the great friendship that crowned his life. In the warm glow of it his soul opened and expanded. He dreamed of Mac at night. Mac was the center of his first thoughts on awaking. Mac entered into all the plans and activities of his day. Mac was the trusted confidant of his youthful aspirations, the companion of his nautical adventures. Into Mac’s ever-sympathetic ears he poured all his boyish woes and fears. With Mac he set his face toward a rosy to-morrow. And then came the bitter ending of it all.”
― Walter Alden Dyer, Many Dogs There Be

“In the days when the fairies still populated Erin and the minstrels sang the ballads of Oisin, the kings of Ireland and their nobles bred the greatest of all dogs for the hunting of the gray wolf and the gigantic Irish elk—a sport for men of heart and brawn. Kin to the greyhound and as fleet, owning the blood of the wire-haired terrier of the north and as gamy as he, this dog was bred the largest and bravest of his kind—the sagh clium, or wolf-dog.”
― Walter Alden Dyer, Many Dogs There Be

“Ruth, indeed, though she dearly loved horses and was an expert rider, did not care at all for dogs. She could tolerate a cocker spaniel and admire a well-bred collie, but how any one could lavish affection on a great brute like Kilfane she could not understand.”
― Walter Alden Dyer, Many Dogs There Be

“She was a woman fighting a woman’s fight for her beloved, and her thoughts were all upon velvet-nosed Prince Charming and the five days left in which he must be rescued or disappear forever.”
― Walter Alden Dyer, Many Dogs There Be

“We would perhaps have observed a little clapboarded white house, badly needing paint, standing back a little from the street between a blacksmith’s shop and a Chinese laundry. In place of the moat we would have noticed only an uneven brick sidewalk, and the courtyard we would have found crowded full of new gravestones of granite and marble. If we were very observing we might have caught a glimpse of the white face of a serious little girl of ten or thereabouts in a second-story window of the house.”
― Walter Alden Dyer, Many Dogs There Be

“There came to him a picture of a crowded street that never slept, of a hot city roof whereon lay slumbering forms to be guarded. Who was guarding them now? Who lay, watchful and alert, beside the little master, in that fearful, strange-smelling, strange-sounding city? The touch of kind hands, the sound of kind voices had become an every-day matter in old Spot’s life, but into his heart there crept an intense, insistent longing for just one pair of arms about his neck, for the sound of just one voice in his ear.”
― Walter Alden Dyer, Many Dogs There Be

“Meanwhile, a small, red-headed boy, who didn’t count, was wont to sit alone on a hard stone step in the heart of the great, noisy, populous city, gazing out upon the human tide with sullen eyes in which lay the melancholy of a repressed grief.”
― Walter Alden Dyer, Many Dogs There Be

“And there on the door-step beside the red-headed boy, alert but calm and unmoved, sat the contrast of it all, a creature whose attitude and being flooded Mrs. Abington’s mind with visions of brown fields and gorgeous autumn woods, of men in khaki with guns, of the sudden, startling whir of quail and grouse, of the wide ranging of tireless dogs with a scent more keen than eyesight. He appeared to her as the incarnation of the out-of-doors, the genius of wood and field, the spirit of wide spaces, held prisoner within these walls of brick.”
― Walter Alden Dyer, Many Dogs There Be

“To Mrs. Abington, swayed by the prejudice which every honest dog lover must confess, a good English setter was the last word in canine development. She fairly gasped at the sheer beauty of this one, at the heart and brain which every motion, every glance reflected. And he was no common member of his breed; she was well enough versed in dog lore to recognize nobility when she saw it.”
― Walter Alden Dyer, Many Dogs There Be

“Abington did not realize that she, with her white gaiters and her white furs and her dainty grace of manner, was the most incongruous thing in Rivington Street. It did not occur to her that she was a much more noticeable object of attention than the little red-haired boy and the old setter dog sitting in the doorway over Jacob Strunsky’s basement hardware establishment.”
― Walter Alden Dyer, Many Dogs There Be

“For my part, I say that Hezekiah was no less of a hero than some of the grand dogs who wear medals, and he has proved to me that devotion and fidelity may be bred in the breasts of little mongrels of the streets as well as fine dogs born in costly kennels. It is the dog heart and not the pedigree that counts, and the next time I run across a poor, stray, frightened pup, looking as useless and forlorn as any creature can look, I shall say, “There goes a potential hero,” and I shall see what can be done for him.”
― Walter Alden Dyer, Many Dogs There Be

“By her side walks the aristocratic Hop Ming, fluffy-maned, prick-eared, his brush curled tightly over his back, and the characteristic chow scowl between his bright eyes giving him at times a thoughtful and at times a menacing appearance; Hop Ming, twice a champion, possessor of a chest full of silver trophies and blue ribbons, and Miss Cornelia Hutton’s latest enthusiasm.”
― Walter Alden Dyer, Many Dogs There Be

“The New York police-dogs are not as finely trained as those of Ghent and other European cities. Not as much is asked of them. But they are expected to stick to their official masters, to recognize men in uniforms as friends and all others as possible enemies, to answer at once to the police-whistle or the rap of a night-stick, to hurl themselves upon a man attacking a policeman, to lie still and watch when commanded, to pursue and throw a fleeing criminal, to search around buildings at night, and to give notice by barking of the presence of persons lurking in the shadows. Pete showed not the slightest inclination to do any of these things.”
― Walter Alden Dyer, Many Dogs There Be

“Pete, the experts decided, was a full-blooded Airedale terrier of the “outside” type. By that I mean that he bored but slight resemblance to the small, nervous, inbred Airedales that figure at Madison Square Garden in February.”
― Walter Alden Dyer, Many Dogs There Be

“I cannot yet see why it was considered necessary or in any way desirable to introduce another member into our household; particularly a loathsome, evil-minded, treacherous, and altogether useless and selfish Cat. We were, to my way of thinking, quite a complete and satisfactory family group as it was. There were Master and Mistress, without whom, of course, no household could be. There was Baby to provide occupation and a necessary object of worship. There was Nurse to look after Baby; there was Cook to feed us all; and there was myself, the Dog, to look after the rest of them and to make the many comforts of the establishment more completely worth while. It was, I think you will agree with me, a well-balanced organization. The addition of the Gray Devil was, to say the least of it superfluous.”
― Walter Alden Dyer, Many Dogs There Be

“The Gray Devil I was implacably resolved to slay. Come what might to me, I was determined to rid our once happy home of the menace of her malignant presence. They might kill me, but I would save them.”
― Walter Alden Dyer, Many Dogs There Be

“He was always described as huge, gaunt, and ghostly white. Always he was running and never veered from his course if he caught the scent of man near-by. Always he appeared suddenly and disappeared as if by magic, and always there was the fear which sent men hurrying home, undesirous of a second glimpse.”
― Walter Alden Dyer, Many Dogs There Be

“He was John’s Hound, a big, rangy, heavy-jawed brute, who partook of his master’s surliness toward the bulk of mankind. But he had redeeming qualities, as most dogs have. He would guard John’s flock of flee-bitten sheep against all comers, and he was a renowned hunter. And I think I never heard of a dog more utterly devoted to one man than was Roderick. When John was in drink, which happened periodically, he had been known to beat the dog cruelly, but without producing the slightest resent on Roderick’s part.”
― Walter Alden Dyer, Many Dogs There Be

“On the child’s birthday, she announced, she would spend the day on the grave, without food or drink. Some busybody carried the news to John. He grew black but was ominously calm.

“If she does that, I will kill her,” said he.

She did it, and he killed her.”
― Walter Alden Dyer, Many Dogs There Be

“I have been a long time bringing myself to set down this strange story of Etta Farnsworth and the phantom hound of Hardhack Hill because I have doubted my ability to make it credible. It is not the sort of thing that happens to highly civilized communities where people are born, marry, and die without tragedy and without superstitious terrors.”
― Walter Alden Dyer, Many Dogs There Be

“Hell,” I thought, “hat no fury like a woman scorned, except one whose dog has been kicked.”
― Walter Alden Dyer, Many Dogs There Be

“It is a small thing I do for him in dedicating this volume of tales to Sandy, my brother in error, my never-failing friend of thirteen years. He will not comprehend it, of he cannot read books. But I shall tell him, and his stub tail will wag and his moist nose will seek my ear, and he will make little whining noises in his throat. And we shall understand each other, for we are brothers.”
― Walter Alden Dyer, Many Dogs There Be