As I’ve said before, this is my favorite dog book.
It’s a wonderful mix of science and narrative.
And Merle is a retriever, an animal whose essence I’ve experienced through three separate individuals. Many of Merle’s characteristics I have seen in the dogs I have lived with. He is very friendly, but he’s also very smart and imitative. He is allowed free range over a small rural community in Wyoming, and it is through his freedom that Merle develops a lot of his social graces and intellect.
It is a pretty good book. I don’t know if many dogs in this country could experience the freedom that made Merle’s life so interesting. Most dogs live in the suburbs and in urban areas. Freedom is where the dog parks are.
Dogs have been living as Merle did for thousands of years. It has only been in relatively recent centuries that they have been forced to spend most of their lives locked in houses and fenced yards. It is not that we should let our dogs roam in all areas. It is that we have forgotten that dogs need off-leash time. They need time to be dogs.
Because that’s what they are.
No matter how much we train and selectively breed them, they will still have parts of their natures that we can’t control and that maybe we shouldn’t control.
For those of us who really love dogs, it is this part of their characters that makes them so interesting.
He is fantastic. I love his point of view. It is interesting how we see it as ‘different’, when as you say, this is how dogs have always been until recent times.
As for the book – I had to go and buy it for myself. A dog friend let me borrow it and I realized I had to read it again… and again. I love his work.
I got to see him in person at a book signing a few years ago. He was great, very nice and approachable.
Merle’s Door has to be one of my favorite books ever.