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As a young girl, Carol Prisant desperately wants a dog. But after bringing home Sparky, Rusty, and another — "the fact that I can't remember what I named her tells you how long she was allowed to stay" (p. 9) — only to have each evicted by her "beautiful, inflexible, devious mother" (p. 5), Carol resigns herself to a dogless-childhood. However, when Carol is thirty and a mother herself, she revisits her dream, and opens the doors of her heart and home to the cold-nosed, furry-bellied loves that will make her already very good life complete-and eventually help her through the worst of losses.
Carol and her husband Millard met in college. A Northerner, she was charmed by his Georgian accent, and married him when she was only nineteen. Since they were young and struggling to establish themselves, they lived in apartments where dogs were not permitted. Instead, Carol got a "trial dog: a bird" (p. 13). All too soon the bird exhibits problems that neither the clerk at Woolworth's-where Pretty Boy was purchased-nor "the twenty-five cent How to Train Your Bird booklet" (p.13) can answer.
Two years later, Carol is several months pregnant when she once again answers the siren song of the pet store-this time, coming home with a monkey. "A psychiatrist would probably tell you I was practicing: that the monkey wasn't a trial dog, it was a trial baby" (p. 16). After a night of hiding in the closet, the monkey is promptly returned.
The birth of their son, Barden, distracts Carol from acquiring another pet until the family moves into their first real home. There, she dreams of a canine playmate for the now eight-year-old boy. After a trip to the pound, she adopts a cute but untrained beagle that they name Tippy. "Here's how it was. Basically . I hadn't had lessons in Dog, and Tippy hadn't had lessons in Good Dog" (p. 31).
After so many false starts, no one would blame Carol if she decided that pet-ownership was not for her. Yet-in the midst of building the antiques business her mother browbeats her into opening-Carol engages in "a kind of canine speed-dating" (p. 45) and returns home with Fluffy, and home is where this collie stays.
Soon, Carol acquires a seemingly endless number of "lessons in Dog"-from how not to pick a dog, to the wisdom of the crate, to successfully matching breed with (the owner's) personality. Through it all, Millard and Carol-and their growing menagerie of canine companions-rebuild two glorious Victorian homes, and share the kind of love that blesses only the very lucky-until it's gone.
Filled with laugh-out-loud stories about ten dogs and the sometimes hapless owner they shared, Prisant's wise and wonderfully whimsical memoir is like her Lurcher, Juno, who looks like a greyhound but remains a collie at heart. At first glance, Dog House is about the animals that dominate its narrative, but ultimately, it is the touching story of one woman's life, and the loves-human and canine-that make it worth living.
Carol Prisant is the author of Good, Better, Best; the New York Times bestseller, Antiques Roadshow Primer; and Antiques Roadshow Collectibles. Prisant is the American editor of The World of Interiors, and has written frequently for The New York Times, New York magazine, and Martha Stewart Living, among many others.
A CONVERSATION WITH CAROL PRISANT Q. What was your inspiration in writing this book?
A number of years ago, I read somewhere about a 1936 memoir by Elizabeth von Arnim called All the Dogs of My Life. Never having heard of her or her books (she's also the author of Enchanted April), I tracked it down, read it in two days and fell madly in love with the Pomeranian Countess von Arnim, her dogs and the elliptical and engaging way in which she told their interrelated stories.
When I decided to write about my own dogs, I was very neat. I started at the beginning and then somehow, the whole thing just turned into "all the dogs of my life."
I never planned on writing about my family, though. That was wholly unexpected. And a lot more difficult.
Q. At the beginning of Dog House, you write that dog love, unlike human love, is "steadfast, unreserved and genuine. It's wholehearted. It's uncritical. It's accommodating" (p. 2). Yet, you go on to recount some doggie-relationships which required you to do quite a bit of accommodation, including sneaking out of your own home, and suffering more than a few nips. In retrospect, do you still believe that dog love is easy?
You know, it's super-easy for dogs to love us, yes, unconditionally. But it isn't super-easy for us to love them the same way. They have all these, well . . . animal-type things that keep getting in the way (see Dog House).
Still, I've never met a serious dog owner who wasn't willing to go to the mat-financially or emotionally-for the dogs she loved. I even have one friend who has no problem with a dog that bites. She says she would adopt her dog out only if she could no longer afford its medical bills or its food. And I have several not-very-flush friends who still manage to find funds for special diets for their older dogs, or for newer, comfier, dog beds. We do commit fully, and from the heart.
Over time, though, what I've learned is that anything that's really worthwhile in life isn't easy: the good marriage, the old house, the children you can be proud of, the loving (and well-behaved) pet. If such valuable things as these were "easy", after all, everyone would have them.
Q. After having acquired dogs in every possible manner-from the pound, by chance, and directly from the breeder-what course would you recommend to a first time dog owner?
Acquiring a dog by chance is probably the trickiest of the three because you can't know very much about your pup. Breeders, shelter volunteers, and rescue groups all tend to have learned at least something about each individual's personality. And a first-time owner should always ask for as much information as these people are willing or able to give, because he's going to own that dog for ten to fifteen years, and definitely needs to know if his pet is going to be safe with cats or children. You can't expect any of the aforementioned to know about slippers or homework, though.
That said, acquiring information about a dog's background and temperamental expectations never seemed to make one bit of difference for me, since I almost never got what I bargained for. Except for my biters and fighters, though, I pretty much coped, and you will too.
Q. You don't talk much here about your work with the incredibly popular Antiques Roadshow. How did you come to write The Antiques Roadshow books?
After I stopped hoisting furniture and started writing for magazines, I toyed with the rather grand idea of writing the definitive book on American Classical Revival antiques. But when my lengthy and evidently uninspiring proposal received a lukewarm reception (actually, no reception to speak of), I dropped the whole book thing, returned to my mags and the essay form, and wrote about design and gardens and antiques until, in 1999, a publisher called me with a project. He had a deal to produce a book for the new and highly successful Antiques Roadshow. Would I like to write it? Of course I'd have to travel some with the Roadshow.
Would I??!!
I wrote that book-actually an encyclopedia of antiques-in ten months flat, and it turned out to be so successful that at his next request, I peeled myself off my office floor, limped back to my desk and wrote a second successful volume.
I feel so lucky to have been allowed to hitch a ride on the Roadshow's rocket.
(And alright. I was also lucky that the publisher's wife had once been one of my bridesmaids.)
Q. Did your mother live long enough to see your career in antiques take off?
My mother not only lived long enough to see me become successful, but she spent something like the last twenty years of her life regretting that-instead of the travel business-she hadn't gone into the antiques business herself. Not necessarily because the antiques business was so profitable. Rather, because the goodies antiques dealers get to take home and keep are tangible, and often great investments. The memories of scores of trips to foreign lands begin to run together, I guess, while antiques might support you in your old age. In a few respects.
Q. Do you think that the novelty-seeking gene and the dog-loving gene are linked?
No, I don't think the two are connected. When I look around, I see that most people wouldn't dream of buying a first-generation gadget, for instance. I see women who would choose to stay in one house forever rather than risk buying a new place before they've sold the old one. (I've done that twice now. Millard would still not be talking to me.) I see men who would be happy to dress every day in old camp shorts, college sweaters and elbow-patched wool jackets (Wait, that sounds familiar . . .) Nevertheless, ALL of those people adore their dogs.
But before you move on, wanna buy a 12" flatscreen TV?
Q. How conscious were Jimmy Cagney, Diva, and Juno of Millard's illness?
I wasn't paying much attention just then, but it didn't seem to me that our dogs were at all conscious of Millard's illness. It might be that with two or more dogs, a good deal of their emotional energy is expended on doggy interaction, although Diva, his darling, was, as ever, velcroed to his lap. She warmed his last months like nothing else could.
Q. Do you regret parting with any of the dogs you've given away?
I regret parting with every one. Each parting marked a failure of patience, understanding and will. And I'm not proud of that.
I suspect that giving up a dog is a lot like a smaller, cheaper, slightly less painful divorce, and I often find myself imagining my exes' undoubtedly more successful second marriages. With Diva, especially, I've been sad that I couldn't have given her the great life she has now (I only wish I had the great life she has now!) With Jimmy Cagney, I was unambiguously happy.
Q. Now that Juno is gone, have you gotten another dog to keep you and Ajax company?
No, I haven't looked for another dog. Juno is still too fresh in my heart, and her hair is still on my jeans.
Q. Is there a breed of dog that you'd love to have, but would never get, and why?
I've almost never seen a dog I wouldn't love.
But I'm also always attracted to dogs with smooth coats, which pretty much limits my choices. And I'm (still) a sucker for that Jack Russell face, but besides my rotten history with JRs, there's this potential problem: Little dogs can trip you up. I once fell over Emma, who, as I walked down the stairs behind her one day, decided to stop and stretch out comfortably on a stair tread. I tripped and broke an ankle.
On the other hand, I really do like what the British call "long dogs". The problem there is that very big dogs, like Irish Wolfhounds and Scottish deerhounds don't live long enough. I couldn't deal with that.
- Are dog people born or made? Is Carol a "dog person"?
- Carol bought a monkey to help prepare herself for her soon-to-be born child. Is caring for a pet good training for parenthood?
- Were you shocked to read that monkeys could once be bought in pet stores "with no instructions" (p. 17)?
- When Millard was busy with his business, Carol writes that she became "a little too dependent on Barden's company" (p. 49), and therefore sent the sixteen-year-old to boarding school. How would you have handled the situation?
- After Barden left for college, the Prisants acquired a very large house in need of a lot of repairs, and discovered "a supreme joint passion" (p. 55). How might their marriage have developed had they not discovered a joint interest beyond Barden?
- Carol writes, "suburban pet owners like us, on the other hand, didn't deal well with the Animal. We were all about anthropomorphizing the furry things we lived with and cared for" (p. 127). Is treating a pet like a human being a bad thing for a pet owner?
- Do you agree with Carol's eventual conclusion that she did not have the right personality for a Jack Russell? If you were to play matchmaker, what kind of dog would you pair with Carol? With yourself?
- How do you imagine that you'd receive the advice the Prisants got to not "worry about getting the 'best' or most highly recommended doctor.. Just look for that person who'll be there for your midnight phone call; the guy who'll show up when things get hard and you need him to be there" (p. 201)?
- Have you read Joan Didion's The Year of Magical Thinking? If so, do you agree or disagree with Prisant's assessment that "she wrote Death, obliquely, to death" (p. 212). Is death-or child-rearing, or dog-training-something that can be better handled by reading a book?
- Which is your favorite of Carol's dogs?
