Ernest Hemingway might have had his cats but here at BookTrib HQ we know the truth–dogs rule. In fact,we have two of them on our staff, acting as furry muses and occasionally distracting us with their cuteness.
That made us wonder about the canine friends of famous writers. As it turns out, we’re not alone in enjoying a dog’s company. E.B. White of Charlotte’s Web and Stuart Little fame had a dachshund named Minnie, who the New York ASPCA mistakenly claimed was unlicensed. Ironically, Minnie was licensed — in Maine. When the association demanded her vital information White took the liberty to respond for her:
“You asked about Minnie’s name, sex, breed, and phone number. She doesn’t answer the phone. She is a dachshund and can’t reach it, but she wouldn’t answer it even if she could, as she has no interest in outside calls.”
You can read the entire delightful correspondence at Letters of Note.
Children’s book illustrator and writer Maurice Sendak raised German shepherds. They occasionally appeared in his illustrations.
Kurt Vonnegut’s dog Pumpkin was up for anything.
Dogs at Hogwarts seemed to be under the care of Hagrid, but there seems to have been at least one that kept Hagrid’s creator company.
Neil Gaiman rescued his beloved Cabal (named after King Arthur’s white dog) from a Midwest roadside. He wrote touchingly of “The Power of the Dog” when Cabal passed away in 2013.
I’d never had a dog. I don’t think he’d ever had a person.
Stephen King’s current Welsh corgi is named Molly, aka the Thing of Evil (she’s actually distractingly cute), but he’s been hanging with these height-challenged herders for quite some time.
No list of beloved authors and their dogs would be complete without our favorite cookbook author, Alton Brown. We wonder; does he cook for Sparky? Lucky dog!