The Underdog: A Celebration of Mutts
by Julia SzaboWorkman, 256 pages, $12.95
Available on Amazon.com
Some choose underdogs. Some have underdogs thrust upon them. All of us end up content. This book is an expansive celebration of underdogs, a.k.a. mutts, and their people.
A cheerfully-designed canine catalog, it gives us history, dog care tips, and lots of pictures: photographs by Bruce Weber and Mary Ellen Mark, a comic by the great Lynda Barry, whose purebred poodle Fred Milton falls hard for lady mutts, as well as drawings by Robert Risko, Marisa Marchetto, Martha Szabo, and Danny Gregory. There are mutt-owning celebrity shout-outs from Hilary Swank to Isaac Mizrahi to - of course - Kevin Bacon. Ally Sheedy's moving tale of dog rescue reveals that her toddler daughter Rebecca, admiring their underdog Geordie, decided she, too, was a mutt.
What can an underdog do? Practically anything, from search and rescue to therapy to advanced agility. In this book you'll learn that of my special heroes, animal trainer William Berloni makes it a point to find his Broadway dog stars in animal shelters.
If you've ever wondered exactly what doggy ingredients went into your Heinz 57 pooch, the book features an extensive catalog of mixes, from the Lab retriever/Basset hound blend to a Dalmatian-pit bull. The book lays out a nice grid of dog breed traits, which made me laugh - I think my underdog Faith's food obsession (Beagle) will always compete with her mania for the water (Retriever): her idea of a perfect world is probably a lake full of liver treats. The good news is that mutts, thanks to something called hybrid vigor, tend to be healthier than their purebred counterparts.
So how do you get yourself an underdog? The book's dog shelter and rescue group etiquette guide will help you through the journey to underdog ownership, at the end of which you'll have a completely unique dog.
To quote the dog-loving chanteuse Nellie McKay, "If you need a companion/Why just go right to the pound/And find yourself a hound."
