The Southern Dog
Photographs by P.S. Davis, edited by Roberta Gamble
Algonquin, 2000, $14.95

I grew up with dogs. I could say I was partly raised by dogs. All to the plus. So I am partial to this book.

Looking at P.S. Davis’ photographs takes me back home — to Butler and Tony (named for Two Ton Tony Galento) and Atlas and all the 35 dogs my father had.

I can close my eyes and smell the dew on the beans in fall when I’d be nodding in the cab of my father’s `37 three-quarter ton Ford pickup, the dogs on a grey or red fox knowing that the red would take the dogs the farthest, while the hunters shuffled the sand and listened for Jayboy or Rock.

The dogs would be out of hearing and my father would say, “Boys, we need old Slobbermouth — he could outrun the Word of God with the Bible tied to his tail.” And then he’d blow the horn, which I inherited. It is hanging over the mantel.

My father, I hope, is in heaven. Even when he couldn’t’ hear the dogs run, he’d cup his ears to listen, he would say, to the “most beautiful noise in the world.” Those days are gone, except as I remember.

And how wonderful to see a picture of the Norwich Terrier. (My wife and I have owned Jamie — Long Valley Jamie — for 15 years. I wonder what that Norwich’s name is and where he came from.

And the lights and darks of the photos, more than just pictures of dogs and people, evoke the transitory relationship between person and dog — between the people and their dogs.

Clyde Edgerton is here, talking about the dogs that partly raised him — Ben, for example: “We had adventures together and when I left him behind at age 22 to join the Air Force, I left him behind almost like I might leave a brother, if I’d had one. My parents would send me pictures of him along with pictures of other relatives.”

Many other writers from or associated with North Carolina are represented here: James Applewhite, Fred Chappell, O. Henry, Pauli Murray, Elizabeth Spencer, Peter Taylor, Anne Tyler, Lee Smith, Reynolds Price, and more: there is Harry Crews and Sam (“If you won’t a dog, you’d talk!”): “Precious. That was my mama’s word for how it was between Sam and me.”

“Reading along, you might occasionally find a dog throat on your wrist.” That is the last sentence in Clyde Edgerton’s introduction. And that is the way Jamie sleeps sometimes. We do not have an alarm clock. We say our Long Valley Jamie has a clock in his tail.

Go out and buy this book. If you like dogs, you will love it. I just wish it were bigger.