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Good Dog
The tactile, almost non-narrative That's Not My... books have yielded to a different, rather romantic series. Felix and I both have fallen for the Good Dog Carl series. Felix isn't particularly discerning yet, but I tend to be skeptical of children's stories that don't have any elements of threat or danger or that seem too complacent.
This series (many of which I read in the redoubtable board book format) is really quite complacent and depicts a world that is utterly secure, except for one gently fantastical exception.
Each book of few words and natural, but 1950's-esque illustrations depicts a different occasion in which Carl, a handsome Rottweiler, is put in charge of a baby. Sometimes they merely compress a day's worth of activities (meal, make-up experimentations at the mother's vanity table, swim in the fish tank, bath and general clean up) into the window of time left open when the baby's mother runs errands. Other times they are in the field, going shopping, wandering the park while the baby's mother has tea with her friend. I know, the whole business just smacks of incredible blandness, but there's something hypnotic about these books. Carl is the perfect companion for the baby. The mother is sexy in her buttoned up but windblown and rumpled way; the house is classically beautiful though it still has a dark basement (which we see after the baby has gone down the laundry shoot).
Of course there's an endless history of dogs-as-caregivers. (The expression "raised by wolves" had to start somewhere.) There is even a strange little coincidence in that Carl author Alexandra Day is a pseudonym for Sandra Darling and anyone with a memory of great canine-nannies of literature will recall that Nana, the Newfoundland in Peter Pan takes care of the Darling children: Wendy, Michael, and John.
Just now I looked back at Peter Pan to see the introduction to Nana, and while she has more apparent likes and dislikes than Carl, it is clear the two would have something to say to one another about child care.
I recently mentioned Carl to one of my sisters-in-law who told me that she had once encountered a book of a similar nature featuring her favorite breed, the Irish terrier. This text, which she figured to be quite old, is called Paddy's Pay-day. As it turns out, the reason for the connection is hardly coincidental. As Carl's website reveals, Alexandra Day created Paddy as well (Paddy was written in 1989 and I guess the true inspiration of Carl didn't blossom until 1995).
Recently I've been extremely aware of the relationship between dogs and kids- particularly my dog and my kid. Since my dog is a terrier, he isn't at all temperamentally suited to babysitting- he's be too likely to take Felix out on a rat chasing expedition or encourage kitchen looting. But the two of them are very close and my dog really does seem to feel responsible for Felix, in spite of all the slights to his tail. Maybe this is because Felix shares food so well, but perhaps it also has to do with the fact that Felix has learned how to talk to dogs, saying: "Wow-wow-wow-wow-wow" in a way that suggests I must be missing something.
posted by Elise at 10:41 AM
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