The Curse of the Book Eater

Sometimes when the wolves are silent and only the moon howls you can still hear him munching on new releases and snarling when someone steps too close to his pulp fiction.

My childhood dog was an avid reader, which is to say that he liked that I read because he considered books to be the most high end of chew toys. Other dogs liked to gnaw on bones, but not my dog. My dog had a more refined palate. My dog knew precisely which book was the final one in the series, and then he would wait until I was in the middle of it before he would creep up and steal it from me.

Finders keepers.

Most of the time he would allow me to retrieve the book after the inevitable offerings of cheese and other treats to assuage his hunger. Then I would return to my chair and continue to read the now dampened and teeth marked pages.

I still have books on my shelf that have gnawed corners. Even though I could replace some of those novels with shiny, new versions. I like the reminder that I was once cursed by a book eater who followed me around the house, curled up on my bed, and loved me almost as much as he loved chewing things he shouldn’t.

In honor of my old book eater and a different kind of love, I may watch some of the Westminster Kennel Club’s Dog Show this evening. It seems serendipitous that today is the last day of the event. I might as well use it to indulge in a bit of memory wandering.

 

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Image Attribution: To my horror and heartbreak, I discovered that don’t have any digitized photos of my old dog. I’ve used images from other examples of his breed in this post.

Agon S. Buchholz, Hundenase eines Samoyeden, 2004, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Hundenase_Samoyede_asb_10-2004_PICT5579.JPG.

Sp..andreea, My Dog, 2008, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:My_dog.jpg.