I’ve been eating, sleeping and breathing puppies. Cutting out dog paws, making chains of bones, sewing fluffy dog-ears, cooking human dog biscuits and planning puppy games. Wonka must think we are going mad. All of this canine craziness for a 5th human birthday party!
My daughter’s puppy infatuation started with ‘Soft Puppy’, her comforting bedtime toy, and was consolidated when her aunty sent her a book from the U.K called If My Dad Were a Dog by Anabel Tellis. It’s a lovely book written from a child’s perspective. Dad is a Chocolate Labrador as depicted in the illustrations. The child takes great pleasure in telling “him to sit” and telling him to “stay”… “If my Dad were a dog, just for a day.”
The real images of a Labrador are enhanced by the bright illustrations of flowers and trophies. The rhyming text makes it easy for the children to follow and pre-empt, especially when dad does “daddy doos.” On the last page there is a clever hybrid picture of Dad reading the book to his son in a human form but with paws instead of feet. Hinting that Dad has become a dog while reading the story.
On this doggie day, I decided to briefly paws and reflect on a few great doggie picture book characters: Lassie, Clifford the Big Red Dog, Lady & The Tramp, 101 Dalmatians, The Poky Little Puppy, Spot, Harry the Dirty Dog, The Trouble with Dogs, The Stray Dog, Dogger, What a Mess (Afghan Hound), and even Walter the Farting Dog. So many picture books are based on man’s faithful friend. I have written one of my own about a sniffer dog but more about that another day. It’s time to go and munch on another dog biscuit – woof, woof!
Oh and by the way, those are my Dalmatian paws (feet) of course.
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