An AZ of Exceptional Dogs

[Previously published as The Great Grisby]

In this charming bestiary of exceptional dogs, Mikita Brottman reflects on the role dogs play in our world, all explored through her relationship with her dog Grisby and many other examples of the dogs of great writers and artists from literature, lore, and life.

While gradually unveiling her eight-year love affair with her French bulldog, Grisby, Mikita Brottman ruminates on the singular bond between dogs and humans. Why do prevailing attitudes warn us against loving our pet too much? Is her relationship with Grisby nourishing or dysfunctional, commonplace or unique? Challenging the assumption that theres something repressed and neurotic about those deeply connected to a dog, she turns her keen eye on the many ways in which dog is the mirror of man.

The Great Grisby is organised into twenty-six alphabetically arranged chapters, each devoted to a particular human-canine union drawn from history, art, philosophy, or literature. Here is Picassos dachshund Lump; Freuds chow Yofi; Bill Sikess mutt Bulls Eye in Oliver Twist; and Elizabeth Barrett Brownings spaniel Flush, whose biography was penned by Virginia Woolf. There are royal dogs, like Prince Alberts greyhound Eos, and dogs cherished by authors, like Thomas Hardys fox terrier, Wessex. Brottmans own beloved Grisby serves as an envoy for sniffing out these remarkable companions.

Quirky and delightful, and peppered with incisive personal reflections and back-and-white sketches portraying a different dog and its owner, The Great Grisby reveals how much dogs have to teach us about empathy, happiness, loveand what it means to be human.