Title: The Book of
Barkley
Author: L.B. Johnson
Author’s blog: http://thebookofbarkley.blogspot.com/
Date: 2014
Publisher: Outskirts Press
Publisher’s web site: http://www.outskirtspress.com
ISBN: 978-1-4787-3434-5
Length: 246 pages
Quote: “Why is it a breed that loves the
water and will cannon ball into any available pool or pond, hates getting
baths?”
By now all regular readers of this web site should have
discovered L.B. Johnson. If you like my blog, which is about a Southern Lady
who lives with cats, you probably also like hers, which is about a jet pilot
who lives with dogs.
The mix of serious faith and whimsy is similar. The first
paragraph of The Book of Barkley begins
with Johnson reading “the Old Testament, dipping my finger in a glass of
whiskey,” while “in the distance, a snowplow scrapes the day’s history from
the streets,” and reminiscing about “the one that taught me to love even as he
occasionally barfed on my carpet.”
The mix of grief and fundamental cheerfulness is also
similar. Considered from the human point of view The Book of Barkley ends happily; Barkley’s human survives all her
adventures, recovers (with scars) from her injuries, and marries a nice guy.
Even from the canine point of view it’s not a terribly sad story; Barkley never
was the healthiest of dogs, and he ages faster than some dogs, but he dies old,
without a lot of pain. The mournful beginning simply recognizes that humans
live longer than dogs.
Most dog lovers love and lose and lament half a dozen “best
friends” before they even feel too old to write another book-length dog memoir.
Cleveland Amory
wrote a trilogy: bonding with the first cat, adding a second
cat, surviving the first cat with the second cat for company. This method of
easing the almost inevitable feelings of bereavement is recommended to all pet
owners. However, in writing, the human mind tends to find it convenient to
write one book about one animal, and when we do that, the story usually ends
when the animal dies.
wrote a trilogy: bonding with the first cat, adding a second
cat, surviving the first cat with the second cat for company. This method of
easing the almost inevitable feelings of bereavement is recommended to all pet
owners. However, in writing, the human mind tends to find it convenient to
write one book about one animal, and when we do that, the story usually ends
when the animal dies.
In philosophical terms it’s “good grief” that we feel when a
baby animal we’ve “mothered” becomes an old animal and dies. Animals teach us
to live mindfully and mourn reasonably. Often the human godparent is the one
who decides the animal needs to be put down before its condition becomes more
painful. The animal itself may have been brought up ten full
generations of its kind, or may have accepted the celibate life humans chose
for it. The human is aware that the animal was old, wasn’t meant to live longer
than it did, may have lived much longer than it could have done without the
human’s help. We just miss our pets.
Our grief is entirely selfish. So, if we face up to it, is most of the grief we
feel for the humans of whom we’ve been bereaved.
One way to cope with this selfish grief is of course to
remember the ones we’ve lost. Memories allowed to permeate our consciousness
become part of us. The world has in fact lost something when anyone that is
missed, in any way, goes out of it. If we’re mindful about our memories we can
preserve a little of what has been lost, can carry on a little of what our
loved ones did. For pet owners, a good starting point is to preserve that
interspecies bond the departed animal taught us about. There will never be
another Barkley (or Old Yeller
or Polar Bear
or Flicka
, or most particularly
Black Magic, the Founding Queen of the Cat Sanctuary from
which I blog). There will, however, be other animals that need human
godparents, that can do some of the practical things your lost pet did for you,
that can even be loved in their own way. The web site The Book of Barkley spawned is largely about Barkley’s heir, Abby.
or Polar Bear or Flicka, or most particularly
Black Magic, the Founding Queen of the Cat Sanctuary from
which I blog). There will, however, be other animals that need human
godparents, that can do some of the practical things your lost pet did for you,
that can even be loved in their own way. The web site The Book of Barkley spawned is largely about Barkley’s heir, Abby.
Barkley is a typical Lab, friendly, trainable, big enough to
serve as a guard dog, gentle enough to be a house pet, not especially brilliant
or heroic, not even mischievous and puppyish enough to compete with Marley
for the
title of “world’s worst dog.” Several of his adventures involve being sick,
sometimes as a consequence of eating things he ought to know better than to
eat. Retrievers are big strong dogs, but not always very healthy, not always
even very intelligent; Barkley seems brighter than many retrievers, about
average in terms of digestive problems and bizarre food cravings. He is partly
responsible for one of his human’s more permanent scars…but he nurtures and
amuses her through the surgery.
for the
title of “world’s worst dog.” Several of his adventures involve being sick,
sometimes as a consequence of eating things he ought to know better than to
eat. Retrievers are big strong dogs, but not always very healthy, not always
even very intelligent; Barkley seems brighter than many retrievers, about
average in terms of digestive problems and bizarre food cravings. He is partly
responsible for one of his human’s more permanent scars…but he nurtures and
amuses her through the surgery.
One of the ways other animals are good for humans, as
companions, is that they give us things to laugh about. Barkley does this part
of his duty quite well.
After overindulgence in sausage, “about four a.m. when
Barkley stuck his nose in my face…with the doggie alert of ‘I gotta go! I gotta
go!’…He made a beeline for the corner of the property…I’m standing out there in
a tiny Victoria’s Secret polka dot number covered with a Day-Glo yellow first
responders coat. Somewhere there’s probably a calendar composed of women in
outfits like that.”
After a bit of bacon, “he carefully moved the towel out of the way first before he tagged my floor…I
can see the doggy thought process—‘Mom gets upset if I grab her clean towels
off the counter so I will protect her clean towel even in my indisposition—I’m
a good dog!’”(This is one of the differences that create that bizarre belief
that dogs are more intelligent than cats. When cats are sick they want to show
their human godparents exactly what’s wrong, so they tend to look for the place
where it will be hardest for the human to miss seeing or stepping in the mess…ideally
the human’s shoes, while the human is wearing them. Cats are capable of
reactions like “I will protect my human,” but not as an immediate alternative
to “My human might be able to help me with this; I must make sure s/he sees it.”)
On a happier occasion (for Barkley) “He had somehow gotten
out, run to the neighbor with no fence and through their yard to the water,
where he was swimming laps.”
On a long drive, “Barkley…was trying to stretch every last
inch out of his restraint system and get his head up front…Saying ‘no’ to him
did not work, he’d just scoot closer. What I found that worked was singing. I
inherited the family vocal abilities (all volume, no tone)…Barkley gives me a
look that says, ‘Mom,t he engine is making a horrible noise!’ and retreats in
his harness to the back seat.”
When he’s taken to a professional groomer and picked up at
the time agreed upon, the groomer “was there, with another girl I did not
recognize. ‘I had to call for help,’ she said. Both of them were drenched…their
tools had been flung across the floor, and the picture on the wall was all
askew…As we left, she…said, ‘Miss, I appreciate the business…But please do not bring him back’.”
Such is life with a retriever. Barkley, who inadvertently
destroys his human’s knee, might be considered more trouble than the average
retriever. So why do we love them so? Johnson agrees with Jeffrey Masson that
Dogs Never Lie About Love
. “Dogs don’t know the word ‘love’…Yet…they show it,
as though nothing else had ever been.”
. “Dogs don’t know the word ‘love’…Yet…they show it,
as though nothing else had ever been.”
In cities, dogs often allow humans who have not been
Properly Introduced to speak to each other without being considered rude. In The Book of Barkley, Barkley’s role in
human social interaction goes beyond that. The scene on pages 188-189, in which
we know that two humans are going to stay together for a good long time, is
gross-out funny enough to violate this site’s contract, so I won’t quote it
here. I can only say that it’s not suitable for reading on public
transportation, because you will laugh and you probably won’t want to share
what you’re laughing at with fellow commuters.
Generally, if there’s a thing some readers don’t love about The Book of Barkley it’s a thing other
readers do love, but this book does show cutting-edge, high-tech editing…I mean, if
I’d been its copy editor, I would’ve caught things like “dearth-like moan” and
“He had done…and went...” I don’t always catch these things in blog posts,
either. Nobody wants to look at a blinking box carefully enough to spot them.
When words are printed out on paper, and readers have time to enjoy them, then we notice them. To cannonball, the
dive, means something different from a cannon ball or cannonball, the object;
that space calls attention to itself and looks “wrong” on paper. The space is there
because the computer can’t catch it—“cannon,” “ball,” and “cannonball” all
being words in the spell-checker list—and because, on a computer screen, the
space may not even be visible, depending on the type font.
For readers of a certain age such by-products of the electronic publishing
process may look annoying. Those readers need to spend a little more time
online, and then they will understand.
I bought
this book with some trepidation, myself. (Yes, I sometimes accept payment in Amazon giftcards, although I prefer Paypal or postal money orders.) Barkley’s human had already sent a
generous gift to Inky. Some cosmic law seems to dictate that when
nice people who have done nice things for you have written books, they’ve
written dreadful books. I was blessed. The Book of
Barkley is a first book, but it’s a good read. It has actually become an Amazon bestseller, and it deserves to be one.
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