If you are a dog lover but you were disgusted by the details of Tulip's season and the smearing of Vaseline on her vulva, I think Ackerley's point is that you don't love dogs and probably shouldn't own one.I don't like dogs, but I enjoyed this. He has found himself in a bizarre situation; a huge dog in his second floor flat in Putney.For people who don't like dogs, I would advise crashing on through the chapter about shitting (this was written before owners thought of taking it home with them) as the chapters about sex are really funny. "If there had been any comedy in the situation ever, it was no longer present; the scene had the quality of nightmare" he says at the end. But we can enjoy it. "he had been an officer who had managed to combine great courage and efficiency with a marked indolence of habit. Whenever, for instance, he had wanted his servant or his orderly, as he frequently did, it had been his custom to fire his revolver into the wall of his dugout – one shot for the servant, two for the orderly – to save him the exertion of shouting.""The house ... managed to be bleak without being actually cold;""He belonged to that conventional Sunday-best type of working-class person who cannot bear to be seen even carrying a parcel or doing anything that might attract attention to himself."The pads on a dog's foot:"I used to suppose them made of some tough, resistant, durable substance, such as rubber or gutta-percha; but they are sponges of blood. The tiniest thorn can pierce them, a sharp edge of glass, trodden on merely at walking pace, can slice them open like grapes."I was touched by this passage:"I realized clearly, perhaps for the first time, what strained and anxious lives dogs must lead, so emotionally involved in the world of men, whose affections they strive endlessly to secure, whose authority they are expected to unquestionably obey, and whose mind they never can do more than imperfectly reach and comprehend."
Hmmm. What to say. Okay, this review is going to be full of spoilers. (1.) I think I made a mistake in reading the introduction first. I couldn't get it out of my head that Elizabeth Marshall Thomas said Ackerley's dog was a poorly behaved pain in the ass, so much of Ackerley's subsequent doting struck me as totally unreliable, and, (2.) worse, the type of doting that is barely short of abusive, as (3.) most modern animal philosophers, though I realize they come after Ackerley, have come to accord at very least on the point that dogs need/deserve/have biologically evolved to want/to be obedient to humans. (4.) Maybe there's something wrong with me, but Ackerley's pronouncements of love struck me as Humbert Humbert creepy more than once. Dogs go into heat, they drip on the carpet, like all animals they have a desire to procreate, that's about as poetic as I wanna get about it. (5.) I hate German Shepherds, I have no idea why, but this book didn't convince me of their beauty, though maybe that's besides the point. (6.) I don't know! It's hard to say. I love dogs and the friend who lent me this thought that because I love dogs I would love this book. Maybe I had the wrong idea in my head about what kind of book it would be. But reading about dog's anal glands and erections just reminds me of the dogs I've been around, and in my opinion those things are the bad stuff you take with the whole, not the kinda things you dote on. If Nabokov had written this book with better writing and it had been fiction and had been about some creepy guy, it could maybe have been awesome. But as a memoir, some guy loving on his dog's heat with this awful Victorian diction, no.
What do You think about My Dog Tulip (1999)?
Rarely do I put books down...about half way through this one I am. The detail in which Tulip is described, with all due respect to mr. Ackerley, border on creepy. Specifically, the part where he describes Tulip going into heat, and watching her pink vagina grow larger ever day. I understand the beauty in the relationship between an owner and their dog, and many books capture it so well. This one, for me, has not. If anyone has read it and thinks I should finish the second half let me know!(I may finish it on my drives in and out to yoga and will update this review)
—Colleen
I always like reading about dogs and dogs' behavior with other dogs and with humans, but "My Dog Tulip" is also an elegant piece of writing and an interesting period piece about England, its classes, and its values. The book has offended some reviewers because Tulip's sex life or lack thereof is a main theme. I would agree that Ackerley obsesses about whether his beloved Alsatian (a breed known as German shepherd by most of the world these days) is sexually content, but the reader should also remember that the book was written in the mid-1900s. Dog overpopulation was not an issue as it is today, and concerns about doggie-sex reflected judgments regarding how such activity would affect a dog's behavior--and based on Ackerley's account, most seemed to think it was right, proper, natural, and good for dogs.Ackerley, whose own life merits a biography (and I have no doubt there are several), is a kindhearted man whose way of life reflects a high degree of self-sufficiency, if one can read a bit between the lines. Tulip is his muse and is far more of a person to him than anyone else he describes. Most dog-owning readers who can get beyond different perspectives associated with when the book was written should be able to identify with Ackerley's love for Tulip and appreciate his occasional struggles with her lack of appreciation for human standards of propriety. Every reader should at least acknowledge that his writing provides an exquisite portrait of a dog and of life in England during a bygone era.
—Jane
My Dog Tulip is about a man living in London with his Alsatian (German Shepherd). Almost the entire book is taken up with the "sex life" of Tulip and finding her "a husband". She has a litter at age 4 whom the owner plans to drown (he never says what became of the pups) and how, in her later years, she developed recurring pyometra (pus in the uterus) but chose hormone therapy over spaying the dog. Having worked in veterinary medicine nearly my entire life, I had a lot of problems reading this book and of the ignorance of this owner. The only excuse I can offer was that it was first written in 1965 and education and pet welfare information has greatly increased in recent years.
—Lori Schiele
