Dog love

by Marjorie B. Garber

Roving from real life to "dogs' lives" (canine biography and autobiography), kennel clubs to leash laws, "puppy love" to dogs as emblems of mourning and loss, Dog Love unleashes a fresh perspective on a favorite topic. What do the stories of such "celebrity hounds" as Lassie and Millie Bush have to say about the demands we place on their human counterparts in political life and popular culture? In an age when information abounds but comprehension seems to be breaking down, how do fantasies about canine communication express our longing to be understood? Why are we able to accept in our pets the very mix of emotional constancy and sexual inconstancy that dogs our human partnerships? How does our preoccupation with canine pedigree reflect social snobbery, nationalism, and other forms of cultural anxiety? What does the growing body of dog law have to say about our desires to regulate human behavior? Why is it that, from Argus onward, the dog has embodied our most elegiac feelings? In expl