The Story of Edgar Sawtelle and other Fictional Tales...

After much prompting by my colleagues and friends, I broke down and bought the book written by David Wroblewski in the hopes of finally finding a tale worthy of my limited time.

I love to read and in earlier days made a practice of reading as much as I could on any topic I found of interest (to the point that what parts of my home which are not allocated to the housing of dogs, people and all of their accoutrements but to books; hundreds and hundreds of them).

The vast majority of my book space is divined for works of non-fiction but occasionally I will allow a fictional piece to reside there in a collection that ranges from archaeology to astrophysics. Every letter of the alphabet is represented although of late I tend to shove them in any available space and in no particular order. If I have to find something in particular, I have to search each and every spine, looking at each and every title.

Someday, I will treat myself to organizing them in such a way that they are cataloged in some reasonable fashion. Something tells me however, that is not likely to happen anytime soon. Still they proliferate; on nightstands, coffee tables, office desks, kitchen counters, chairs, beds and dining room tables. I cannot pass a bookstore, library or antique shop without buying SOMETHING with pages and text.

I need a bigger house. The Library of Congress or the archives of the Vatican will do nicely.

What drew me to this story of course is the dog component. A genealogy that begins and ends with one family who painstakingly creates a recognizable type of dog based on an intangible virtue.

The founder, John Sawtelle is captivated by a dog he meets by chance in a town distant from the one he lives in, based on how the dog regards him. How the dog looks at him.

In the era of Albert Payson Terhune and his books about the life at Sunnybank Fam, I guess the term that best describes the quality of dog that Sawtelle envisions is 'sagacity'.

I suppose every dog owner would feel that way about their dog, but as a reproducible quality?

He acquires a dog of indiscriminate ancestry through a trade and the Sawtelle dogs are born.

I imagine in the early foundation of all recognizable dog breeds, something similar had to have taken place and the thought becomes not so idyllic after all, but the story unfolds with the principals essentially creating a strain of dogs whose no greater purpose is to be good pets. Or as referred to in the book, 'companion animals'.

There is much of value in this read; of training dogs, rearing dogs, breeding dogs but then the story veers dangerously into a treatise of why 'show dogs' will never be selected as breeding stock but then great importance is placed on (what otherwise should be maintained as arbitrary structure or if you prefer; conformation, of) the Sawtelle dogs.

So why is structure given so much emphasis? My initial thought was that this passage was going to lend itself to the argument of form following function and at least the suggestion of breeding dogs for a purposeful task, but I was mistaken as the story continues to unfold.

Although the story abandons the pretense of being a 'dog story' pretty early on, Mr Wroblewski had an interesting collection of material to work from, but still some of what is portrayed in the book can only come from one who has experienced it first-hand. I read somewhere that Wroblewski had a relative that bred English Springer Spaniels for field trials, but I have not been able to confirm that claim.

There is no illusion about the book being other than a novel, but it is rich with language and descriptions comforting to 'dog people' everywhere. It resonates with the reader that is familiar with dogs and the dog culture. The language is deeply descriptive, warmly familiar and relatively responsible with issues that are germane to breeders, trainers and other dog professionals.

The book never loses enthusiasm for responsible practices and lends insight to much of the concerns surrounding the politics of 'dog'.

The Sawtelle dogs undergo rigorous training and handling from birth to placement and the regimented protocols are documented in such a way as to give clear and concise information on not only their heritage, but their growth and development both physically, mentally and emotionally.

Much of what is done mirrors the processes of conscientious breeders and trainers throughout the ages and one can read this novel and come away with a feeling that there IS someone out there that KNOWS what it's like to handle a great dog from the moment of it's birth to it's passing.

Much of what is written should be done for ALL DOGS, representing goals all dog breeders should aspire to, all trainers should aspire to accomplish at all levels of obedience.

But the story takes it's departure from our personal beliefs through a dialogue remembered by the central character regarding a conversation about the breeding to "show dogs" and how that 'must never occur' in the grand scheme of the Sawtelle dogs. Another about the value of the Sawtelle dogs as it relates to the value of a pup from a 'show ring Champion'.

I do not disagree with the concept, as most dogs of pure breeding today are rife with hereditary defects that disable their abilities to function in the capacities that they were developed and maintained for. My departure came when I realized that the Sawtelle dogs were specifically created for 'that one-in-a-million' quality that is so intangible that it cannot be measured by breeding for or training for. These mythological beasts were created out of whimsy to satisfy one man's quest for 'sagacity'.

The current definition of a show dog is pretty much like what you see at the Westminster Kennel Club's annual show in New York. It is an arbitrary adherence to an arbitrary standard of physical perfection (conformation) without the rigorous testing that only a standard of FUNCTION can determine.

What was originally intended to identify the physiology of exemplary working structure borne by merit of performance has been reduced to the production of Beauty Pageant contestants.

As a dog professional, I understood the derision and the reference, but I got lost when I realized that the description of the Sawtelle dogs became one of an esthetic standard. If not in physiology, then one of the mind.

And then there's the line as remembered by the son Edgar about what a dog 'meant'.

The construction of the dialogue with Fortunate Fields and the correspondance over what the founder of the Sawtelle dogs called the "next dogs".

All interesting hypothesis that ends up tragically wasted by the ending of the book.

These qualities that Sawtelle sought are those of the mind. I got the impression that what he was trying to create was literally a mind-reading dog, or one so perceptive to it's owners needs that it could interpret human behavior and engage it on a cerebral level.

The final portion of the book has the lead character literally releasing the dogs into the wild where they take up with a feral dog that is written about intermittently throughout the story.

The reader is left to come to his own conclusions regarding the outcome of the dogs, the genetic endowment and the painstaking work to create them in one final cataclysmic blow.

It's a good read for a lot of people. Dog folks too, if you can suspend your disbelief and remember that it is a work of fiction.

I am ambivalent about the book. I liked the story until it grinds to a screeching halt undoing anything I had personally hoped for regarding the outcome of the magnificent Sawtelle dogs and their rich, inspiring history.

I hated the fact that it played on the dubious fortune of randomly breeding dogs for a reason that is, to me at least, a bit pretentious. This train of thinking is what has given birth to the capitalization of 'new breeds' of designer dogs instead of preserving the working qualities of the dogs at hand.

I was left thinking about the concept of the "next dogs" and what ramifications that could possibly have.

As for what a dog "meant" all one has to do is ask a dog owner who has painstakingly created a relationship with his animal, a breeder who has chosen judicious selection to a standard of performance over the contentious fad breeding of the show dog populations and the trainer, who has endured to understand dogs through observation, effort and compassion.

I have already found a home for my copy.