25 FebEpisode 194 | Great writing about dogs: An NY Times Obituary and a chapter from Mary Poppins (Also: We’re 4!)
In celebration of School For The Dogs' recent ten year anniversary, this podcast's fourth anniversary, and Annie's birthday last week, she shares two gems for anyone who loves dogs and loves reading, or writing, about them. One is an obituary for Finn, a Manhattan-based dog who died last month. He belonged to Dr. Alexandra Horowitz of Barnard's Dog Cognition Lab. The other is a fictional piece about a pampered dog, yearning to break free from an overbearing woman who insists on treating him like a child. It is a chapter from the first Mary Poppins book, written by P.L. Travers in 1934. Special guest: Magnolia Pedicone.
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Mentioned in this episode:
Finnegan, Dog Known for His Exemplary Nose, Dies at 14
Books by Dr. Alexandra Horowitz
Related Episodes:
Episode 104 | Dog training with Mary Poppins, Professor Harold Hill and Little Orphan Annie
Episode 1 | Meet Annie and learn how School For The Dogs came to be
Transcript:
Magnolia:
Hi, I’m Magnolia.
Annie:
And how old are you, Magnolia? Are you holding up three fingers? You have to say it. Can you say it?
Magnolia
Free.
Annie:
And who do you live with?
Magnolia:
Mommy and Daddy. And Poppy.
Annie:
And who else?
Magnolia:
And Amos.
Annie:
Aw, you don't live with Amos anymore. Who else do you live with, though? Mommy and Daddy and Poppy and?
Magnolia:
Marigold!
Annie:
Marigold! Is she a baby? Yeah. And what are you? Are you a baby?
Magnolia:
No, a big girl.
Annie:
You're a big girl. What does your Mommy do for work?
Magnolia:
The dog training.
Annie:
And what is dog training?
Magnolia:
That is training Poppy.
Annie:
It's training Poppy?
Magnolia:
Yeah.
Annie:
What does that look like? What do I do when I'm training Poppy,
Magnolia:
You need to give treats.
[music]
Annie:
Hello, human listeners. Thank you for being here. Today I got a little reminder on Facebook that 10 years ago, I had put a t-shirt on my late wonderful dog Amos that said “The Dogs: Dog Training near Union Square.” And it made me remember that School For The Dogs just turned 10. Kate and I met in 2011 and started training together in 2011. So I guess it's actually a little bit more than 10 years.
But I think it was about February, 2012 that we really started training out of my apartment, which is where we were located at the time. We converted my living room into a dog training center. And at first we called it the dogs, cause I had a blog called The Dogs and then we changed it to School For The Dogs to make it a little bit more descriptive, so people understood what we were doing and we've come a long way in the last 10 years. It went from being just me and Kate to now we have a staff of, I don't even know 15 people.
And we're certainly still figuring it out. I had no idea what it meant to run a small business. Neither did Kate. And we're working hard at it, trying to make it work, learning all the time. And I'm really proud of our team and what we've created. And I'm honored that this podcast has listeners. And this podcast also is having a kind of birthday. I posted the first episode four years ago next week, and I had a birthday last week.
So to celebrate all these birthdays today, I wanted to just share a couple things I've read lately that really touched me. So these are gifts that I want to give you or share with you these little gems.
The first one is a piece that was written by Dr. Alexandra Horowitz last week for the New York Times. It's an obituary for her dog. She is the head of the Dog Cognition Lab at Barnard College. The author of several really wonderful books about dogs including Inside of a Dog and Our Dogs Ourselves. And totally a superstar celebrity in this field.
Funny story, a couple years ago, a guy my husband knows through his world of studying ancient languages, this man named Damon Horowitz came over to our apartment. We were having a drink at some point. He asked me what I do. And I told him, I'm a dog trainer, and I write, et cetera, et cetera. And he was like, oh, oh my sister's really serious about dogs. And, and she writes too. She works up at Barnard. And I suddenly remembered his last name and was like, oh my God, is your sister Alexandra Horowitz? It was like someone casually mentioning their sister is, I don't know, Madonna or something.
The second piece is a bit of fiction that I just read. And I think these two pieces will go well together, back to back, but we shall see. And I'll tell you more about that one in a moment. But for now, here is Dr. Alexandra Horowitz’s New York Times opinion piece, Finnegan, Dog Known for His Exemplary Nose, Dies at 14, slightly abridged by me. It appeared on February 21st.
Finnegan Horowitz Shea, a charismatic and sniffy mixed breed dog featured in several books on dog cognition and perception, died in New York City on Jan. 21. He was 14½ years old.
Finnegan was scrutable, his desires visible and his affections solid. He was enthusiastic about both humans and dogs, always keen to closely sniff either, to engage in play or to get a rub. Finn was agreeable and friendly, and professionally he was frequently the exemplar of “dog.”
His first book appearance was in “Inside of a Dog,” as a puppy curled in the author’s lap; sketches of him, showing a budding mischievous side, are dotted throughout. He featured as an olfactory “expert” in “On Looking,” leading the author on a tour of the odorous wonders of a city block, and as a kind of participatory journalist (with help from a ghostwriter) while he trained in nose work for “Being a Dog.”
Finnegan, also known as Finn, Kiddo, Mouse, Sweetie or Mr. Nose, was thought to have been born in the spring of 2007 in Tennessee, according to the shelter that found him as a stray and took him to North Shore Animal League in Port Washington, N.Y. His parentage is unknown. He was afflicted with parvovirus, from which he recovered.
He lived on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, frequenting both Riverside and Central Parks, where he was admired for his running and twirling speed, his winsome look formed by a panting face and wagging tail, and stealing other dogs’ squeaky ball toys and refusing to give them back.
This obituary isn’t running in the Obituaries section of The New York Times. The Times’s Obit section does not run pieces about nonhuman animals — this despite the fact that obituaries are posthumous commemorations of someone’s life and animals are someones and have lives. … An obituarist for The Atlanta Journal-Constitution told the anthropologist Jane Desmond, “Obits are for people. Pets are animals. Period.”
At the beginning of its use in the 18th century, the word “obituary” was applied to any report of a death. Nineteenth-century newspapers reveal plenty of mention of obituaries of dogs, including a poem written to a Spitz dog; a half-column on the death of “Old Jack” by poisoned meat; a pug dog, celebrated as a “canine of canines”; and a dog called Tom who saved three children from drowning and was “very fond of beer.”
And this newspaper has long published news stories of the deaths of animals, from the 1876 death of Hambletonian, a trotting horse…([who sired] around 1,500 foals) to the 1923 death of Prince Ski, a “famous motion picture dog” (his specialty was “strolling through gardens with richly gowned women”). In more recent decades, these pieces have metamorphosed to closely resemble the archetypal obituary: detailing the deceased’s celebrity or newsworthiness, age…and cause of death. Some testament from others is often given…as is a biography and details of parentage.
The final sentences may include details on next of kin…or a telling quote about the deceased …But despite their obituariness, the newspaper does not call them obituaries.
A more emotionally miserly motive, less often stated, might explain animals’ exclusion from Obituary pages. It is the feeling of the need to emphasize the importance of human life over those of other animals — sometimes expressed by ridiculing the very idea of an obituary for something like an animal kept as a pet. “Grotesque,” one columnist wrote in Mediaweek about the “horrifying” possibility of including animal obituaries in newspapers, sure that any story could only be “mawkish.” On occasion, a paid death notice of a pet published alongside that of a human has outraged readers, as though the very proximity to an animal demeans a human. This is especially odd, given that so many humans have intentionally chosen to be proximate to animals — especially pet animals, letting them into their homes, living rooms and even beds. And we are ever more aware of how intertwined nonhuman and human lives are — even if it is our thinking more conscientiously about animals we eat or about transmission of viruses across species lines.
Obituaries index the values of our culture — and in this culture we have increasingly learned the value of nonhuman life. It is high time that news sources consider the possibility of acknowledging the reality of animal lives alongside our own. Obituaries, which follow something of a template, seem the perfect space to consider an animal’s life story. For the obituary is notable — and distinguishable from other news reports — for its lack of direct access to its subjects, given the fact of their death. Their story has to be told by others, biographically, by describing their journeys, their behavior and their interactions. Obituaries inevitably include others’ voices describing what the deceased did or the impact they had.
But this is precisely the information we have about animals — especially those well enough known by humans to have tellers of their story. Not only can I speak of the life course of a pet dog. I, like anyone who lives with dogs, know of his friends, his habits; I know his preferences and his quirks. I have stories of his effect on me, and others have told me stories of his effect on them. As a scientist, I am interested in Finnegan’s own perception of his world, of his phenomenal experience, but as an obituary writer, I know it is moot.
Finnegan was a handsome dog, his coat a shimmery blue-black, his ears soft and his gaze responsive and deep. His nose, renowned for its skill at sniffing out lost cats and that little crumb of cheese that might still be in your pocket from last week’s sandwich, was shiny and bright. His tail, long and slightly curved, was perpetually up in pleasure and anticipation and often wagging heartily, until a progressive paralysis crept in and stole its wag.
Even when, in his last year, he lost the use of both rear legs, he adjusted with fierce determination and steadiness, learning to make specific requests of his needs to his people with voice and gesture and overcoming uncertainty about a wheelchair to soon run with it down the sidewalks of New York in pursuit of a good smell or a person who might lean over and tickle his chin.
As a model for dog behavior, Finnegan helped to reveal to hundreds of thousands of people how dogs perceive the world through their noses and to appreciate their own dogs’ parallel universe. His greatest impact, though, was surely felt by the family that survives him, including two Canis familiaris, one Felis catus and the three people lucky to know him personally.
By being a dog, Finnegan showed me the richness of the world that I had overlooked, and I am forever changed. In life, animals are rarely treated with the respect due these fellow travelers on earth; when they die, we have one last chance to do so.
I will link to the full piece and the show notes, hope you enjoyed that. I think what I'm trying to do with the Best Pet Ever series is give people a space to talk about their pets, their animals, dogs in particular, but all animals, and remember animals and think aloud about animals. And I think Dr. Horowitz just does such a great job of articulating why need to be doing that now more than ever.
The second piece I wanna read is from Mary Poppins and was written nearly a hundred years ago. And I never read the Mary Poppins books. I've seen the movie many times and always heard the books were much better than the movie. But having gotten to adulthood, I figured I will probably never have the time and sit down and read all of Mary Poppins, or all Roald Dahl, or other authors I wish I had read all of when I was a kid. But then I had kids and I'm realizing that it is a great way into reading some really good fiction.
Now, if you have watched the original movie version of Mary Poppins many times during quarantine as I have with my daughter, you will know that there is a dog named Andrew who makes a couple short appearances.
His main role in the plot is that he is the one who tells Mary Poppins to go visit her Uncle Albert who loves to laugh and is having a tea party up on the ceiling. Well, Uncle Albert is in the book. But so is Andrew. And last night I was reading Mary Poppins to Magnolia and I got to this chapter called Miss Lark’s Andrew, chapter four.
And Magnolia fell asleep, but I kept reading and I thought it was really wonderful and kind of captures how, or I guess we can make some guesses based on this, about how people thought about dogs a century ago. Certainly I think there is a lot of overlap with how dog lovers are viewed today still. But I think the main thing I like about it is all the interesting points of view. Dr. Horowitz says so beautifully, how obituary is a chance to focus on the point of view that does not require you to get inside of the dog's actual brain to know what they're thinking. It's about observation.
But P. L. Travers’ Mary Poppins is fiction. So there can be lots of thoughts about what is going on inside of a dog's head. So we hear the dog's perspective. We hear the narrator's perspective. We hear the dog's owner's perspective. And we hear from Mary Poppins, who is sort of a Doctor Doolittle character in this book, but also a kind of dog trainer and kind of a dog advocate.
[music]
Jane and Michael always knew when Ms. Lark was in the garden or coming along the lane because she wore so many brooches and necklaces and earrings that she jingled and jangled just like a brass band. And whenever she met them, she always said the same thing. “Good morning,” or “Good afternoon,” if it happened to be luncheon. “And how are we today?”
And Jane and Michael were never quite sure whether Ms. Lark was asking how they were, or how she and Andrew were. So they just replied, “Good afternoon,” or of course, “Good morning,” if it was before luncheon.
All day long, no matter where the children were, they could hear Ms. Lark calling, in a very loud voice, things like “Andrew, where are you?” or “Andrew, you musn't go out without your overcoat,” or “Andrew, come to mother.” And if you didn't know, you would think that Andrew must be a little boy.
Indeed, Jane thought that Miss Lark thought Andrew was a little boy. But Andrew wasn't, he was a dog. One of those small silky fluffy dogs that looked like a fur necklet until they begin to bark. But of course, when they do that, you know that they are dogs. No fur necklet ever made a noise like that.
Now, Andrew led such a luxurious life that you might have thought he was the Shah of Persia in disguise. He slept on a silk pillow in Miss Lark's room. He went by car to the hairdressers twice a week to be shampooed. He had cream for every meal and sometimes oysters, and he possessed four overcoats with checks and stripes in different colors. Andrew's ordinary days were filled with the kind of things most people have only on birthdays. And when Andrew himself had a birthday, he had two candles on his cake for every year instead of only one.
The effect of all this was to make Andrew very much disliked in the neighborhood. People used to laugh heartily when they saw Andrew sitting up in the back seat of Ms. Lark's car on the way to the hairdressers, with a fur rug over his knees and his best coat on. And on the day when Ms. Lark brought him two pairs of small leather boots that he could go out in the park, wet or fine, everybody in the lane came down to front gates to watch him go by and to smile secretly behind their hands.
“Pooh!” said Michael, as they were watching Andrew one day through the fence that separated Number Seventeen from Next Door. “Pooh, he's a ninkypoop!”
“How do you know?” asked Jane, very interested.
“I know because I heard Daddy call him one this morning!” said Michael, and he laughed at Andrew very rudely.
“He is not a nincompoop,” said Mary Poppins. “And that is that.”
And Mary Poppins was right. Andrew wasn't a nincompoop, as you will very soon see.
You must not think he did not respect Miss Lark. He did. He was even fond of her in a mild sort of way. He couldn't help having a kindly feeling for somebody who had been so good to him ever since he was a puppy, even if she did kiss him rather too often. But there was no doubt about it that the life Andrew led bored him to distraction. He would have given half his fortune, if he had one, for a nice piece of raw, red meat, instead of the usual breast of chicken or scrambled eggs with asparagus.
For in his secret, innermost heart, Andrew longed to be a common dog. He never passed his pedigree (which hung on the wall in Miss Lark's drawing-room) without a shudder of shame. And many a time he wished he'd never had a father, nor a grandfather, nor a great-grandfather, if Miss Lark was going to make such a fuss of it.
It was this desire of his to be a common dog that made Andrew choose common dogs for his friends. And whenever he got the chance, he would run down to the front gate and sit there watching for them, so that he could exchange a few common remarks. But Miss Lark, when she discovered him, would be sure to call out:
“Andrew, Andrew, come in, my darling! Come away from those dreadful street arabs!”
And of course Andrew would have to come in, or Miss Lark would shame him by coming out and bringing him in. And Andrew would blush and hurry up the steps so that his friends should not hear her calling him her Precious, her Joy, her Little Lump of Sugar.
Andrew's most special friend was more than common, he was a Byword. He was half an Airedale and half a Retriever and the worst half of both. Whenever there was a fight in the road he would be sure to be in the thick of it; he was always getting into trouble with the Postman or the Policeman, and there was nothing he loved better than sniffing about in drains or garbage tins. He was, in fact, the talk of the whole street, and more than one person had been heard to say thankfully that they were glad he was not their dog.
But Andrew loved him and was continually on the watch for him. Sometimes they had only time to exchange a sniff in the Park, but on luckier occasions—though these were very rare—they would have long talks at the gate. From his friend, Andrew heard all the town gossip, and you could see by the rude way in which the other dog laughed as he told it, that it wasn't very complimentary.
Then suddenly Miss Lark's voice would be heard calling from a window, and the other dog would get up, loll out his tongue at Miss Lark, wink at Andrew and wander off, waving his hindquarters as he went just to show that he didn't care.
Andrew, of course, was never allowed outside the gate unless he went with Miss Lark for a walk in the Park, or with one of the maids to have his toes manicured.
Imagine, then, the surprise of Jane and Michael when they saw Andrew, all alone, careering past them through the Park, with his ears back and his tail up as though he were on the track of a tiger.
“Hi, Andrew! Where's your overcoat?” cried Michael, trying to make a high, windy voice like Miss Lark's.
“Andrew, you naughty little boy!” said Jane, and her voice, because she was a girl, was much more like Miss Lark's.
But Andrew just looked at them both very haughtily and barked sharply in the direction of Mary Poppins.
“Yap-yap!” said Andrew several times very quickly.
“Let me see. I think it's the first on your right and second house on the left-hand side,” said Mary Poppins.
“Yap?” said Andrew.
“No—no garden. Only a back-yard. Gate's usually open.”
Andrew barked again.
“I'm not sure,” said Mary Poppins. “But I should think so. Generally goes home at tea-time.”
Andrew flung back his head and set off again at a gallop.
Jane's eyes and Michael's were round as saucers with surprise.
“What was he saying?” they demanded breathlessly, both together.
“Just passing the time of day!” said Mary Poppins, and shut her mouth tightly as though she did not intend any more words to escape from it. John and Barbara gurgled from their perambulator.
“He wasn't!” said Michael.
“He couldn't have been!” said Jane.
“Well, you know best, of course. As usual,” said Mary Poppins haughtily.
“He must have been asking you where somebody lived, I'm sure he must——” Michael began.
“Well, if you know, why bother to ask me?” said Mary Poppins sniffing. “I'm no dictionary.”
“Oh, Michael,” said Jane, “she'll never tell us if you talk like that. Mary Poppins, do say what Andrew was saying to you, please.”
“Ask him. He knows—Mr. Know-All!” said Mary Poppins, nodding her head scornfully at Michael.
“Oh no, I don't. I promise I don't, Mary Poppins. Do tell.”
“Half-past three. Tea-time,” said Mary Poppins, and she wheeled the perambulator round and shut her mouth tight again as though it were a trapdoor. She did not say another word all the way home.
Jane dropped behind with Michael.
“It's your fault!” she said. “Now we'll never know.”
“I don't care!” said Michael, and he began to push his scooter very quickly. “I don't want to know.”
But he did want to know very badly indeed. And, as it turned out, he and Jane and everybody else knew all about it before tea-time.
Just as they were about to cross the road to their own house, they heard loud cries coming from Next Door, and there they saw a curious sight. Miss Lark's two maids were rushing wildly about the garden, looking under bushes and up into the trees as people do who have lost their most valuable possession. And there was Robertson Ay, from Number Seventeen, busily wasting his time by poking at the gravel on Miss Lark's path with a broom as though he expected to find the missing treasure under a pebble. Miss Lark herself was running about in her garden, waving her arms and calling: “Andrew, Andrew! Oh, he's lost. My darling boy is lost! We must send for the Police. I must see the Prime Minister. Andrew is lost! Oh dear! oh dear!”
“Oh, poor Miss Lark!” said Jane, hurrying across the road. She could not help feeling sorry because Miss Lark looked so upset.
But it was Michael who really comforted Miss Lark. Just as he was going in at the gate of Number Seventeen, he looked down the Lane and there he saw—
“Why, there's Andrew, Miss Lark. See, down there—”
And there, sure enough, was Andrew, walking as slowly and as casually as though nothing in the world was the matter; and beside him waltzed a huge dog that seemed to be half an Airedale and half a Retriever, and the worst half of both.
“Oh, what a relief!” said Miss Lark, sighing loudly. “What a load off my mind!”
Mary Poppins and the children waited in the Lane outside Miss Lark's gate, Miss Lark herself and her two maids leant over the fence, Robertson Ay, resting from his labours, propped himself up with his broom-handle, and all of them watched in silence the return of Andrew.
He and his friend marched sedately up to the group, whisking their tails jauntily and keeping their ears well cocked, and you could tell by the look in Andrew's eye that, whatever he meant, he meant business.
“That dreadful dog!” said Miss Lark, looking at Andrew's companion.
“Shoo! Shoo! Go home!” she cried.
But the dog just sat down on the pavement and scratched his right ear with his left leg and yawned.
“Go away! Go home! Shoo, I say!” said Miss Lark, waving her arms angrily at the dog.
“And you, Andrew,” she went on, “come indoors this minute! Going out like that—all alone and without your overcoat. I am very displeased with you!”
Andrew barked lazily, but did not move.
“What do you mean, Andrew? Come in at once!” said Miss Lark.
Andrew barked again.
“He says,” put in Mary Poppins, “that he's not coming in.”
Miss Lark turned and regarded her haughtily. “How do you know what my dog says, may I ask? Of course he will come in.”
Andrew, however, merely shook his head and gave one or two low growls.
“He won't,” said Mary Poppins. “Not unless his friend comes, too.”
“Stuff and nonsense,” said Miss Lark crossly. “That can't be what he says. As if I could have a great hulking mongrel like that inside my gate.”
Andrew yapped three or four times.
“He says he means it,” said Mary Poppins. “And what's more, he'll go and live with his friend unless his friend is allowed to come and live with him.”
“Oh, Andrew, you can't—you can't, really—after all I've done for you and everything!” Miss Lark was nearly weeping.
Andrew barked and turned away. The other dog got up.
“Oh, he does mean it!” cried Miss Lark. “I see he does. He is going away.” She sobbed a moment into her handkerchief, then she blew her nose and said:
“Very well, then, Andrew. I give in. This—this common dog can stay. On condition, of course, that he sleeps in the coal-cellar.”
Another yap from Andrew.
“He insists, ma'am, that that won't do. His friend must have a silk cushion just like his and sleep in your room too. Otherwise he will go and sleep in the coal-cellar with his friend,” said Mary Poppins.
“Andrew, how could you?” moaned Miss Lark. “I shall never consent to such a thing.”
Andrew looked as though he were preparing to depart. So did the other dog.
“Oh, he's leaving me!” shrieked Miss Lark. “Very well, then, Andrew. It will be as you wish. He shall sleep in my room. But I shall never be the same again, never, never. Such a common dog!”
She wiped her streaming eyes and went on:
“I should never have thought it of you, Andrew. But I'll say no more, no matter what I think. And this—er—creature—I shall call Waif or Stray or——”
At that the other dog looked at Miss Lark very indignantly, and Andrew barked loudly.
“They say you must call him Willoughby and nothing else,” said Mary Poppins. “Willoughby being his name.”
“Willoughby! What a name! Worse and worse!” said Miss Lark despairingly. “What is he saying now?” For Andrew was barking again.
“He says that if he comes back you are never to make him wear overcoats or go to the Hairdresser's again—that's his last word,” said Mary Poppins.
There was a pause.
“Very well,” said Miss Lark at last. “But I warn you, Andrew, if you catch your death of cold—don't blame me!”
And with that she turned and walked haughtily up the steps, sniffing away the last of her tears.
Andrew cocked his head towards Willoughby as if to say: “Come on!” and the two of them waltzed side by side slowly up the garden path, waving their tails like banners, and followed Miss Lark into the house.
“He isn't a ninkypoop after all, you see,” said Jane, as they went upstairs to the nursery and Tea.
“No,” agreed Michael. “But how do you think Mary Poppins knew?”
“I don't know,” said Jane. “And she'll never, never tell us. I am sure of that…”
