Old Dogs Are the Best Dogs

by Williamson, Michael S.; Weingarten, Gene

• ISBN13: 9781416534990
• ISBN10: 1416534997
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2008-10-07
• Publisher: Simon & Schuster

Summary

The memories that people have of dogs they have loved and lost are almost always of the animal in his final years; somehow, those are the images we treasure most. There is a reason. Old dogs can be rheumy-eyed and grump, gray of muzzle, graceless of gait, eccentric of habit, pimply, wheezy, lazy, lumpy. But that is not the whole of him. The old dog is resolute. He is canny. He is noble. She is funny, and seems to know it. She is sweetly vulnerable. He has character and dignity and an elegance of bearing that belies his circumstances, and above all, he seems at peace. You'd call that wisdom, if it didn't sound so silly. Old Dogs is a portrait book featuring 60 classic black and white photographs of sweet old dogs-Michael Williamson has photographed store-front dogs, mutts, elegant purebreds, junkyard dogs, little dogs, and big dogs. With their stories-sometimes sad, sometimes funny, and sometimes uplifting-- told by Gene Weingarten of the Washington Post, the old dogs featured in this book will captivate any dog lover.

Author Biography

Washington Post photographer Michael S. Williamson was born and raised in Washington, DC. A two-time Pulitzer Prize winner, Williamson has covered a variety of global events over the last thirty years, including the wars in El Salvador and Nicaragua, the Philippine revolution, strife in the Middle East, the Gulf War, and conflicts in Africa and the Balkans. At the Post, Williamson works as both a photographer and a photo editor. He lives in Silver Spring, Maryland, with his daughters, Sophia and Valerie.

Gene Weingarten is a nationally syndicated humor columnist and a Pulitzer Prize–winning staff writer for The Washington Post. He lives in Washington, DC.

Excerpts

Honey, 10

Shanna solemnly passed the butcher knife to Lance, her 16-year-old son. Shanna was a recent widow, Lance, the new man of the house. It was Lance who had brought home the stray.

Shanna had heard about this breed, particularly ones hardened by the streets, trained to do God Knows What. She knew of a test to find out if a dog is too vicious to keep. The test is not without risk.

"I'm going to give her some food," Shanna said, "and then I'm going to suddenly take it away. If she attacks me, you have to kill her."

Shanna put down the bowl. Lance gripped the knife, white-knuckled, wary...

They laugh about it now, nine years later. Honey the pit bull, as sweet as her name.Copyright © 2008 by Gene Weingarten and Michael S. Williamson

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Excerpted from Old Dogs: Are the Best Dogs by Gene Weingarten
All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.