"Please may I come in? I am Boots. I am son of Kildonan Brogue - Champion Reserve - V.H.C. - very fine dog; and no-dash-parlour-tricks, Master says, except I can sit-up, and put paws over nose. It is called 'Making Beseech.' Look! I do it out of own head. Not for telling... This is Flat-in-Town. I live here with Own God. I tell:"
Did you like Black Beauty? Beautiful Joe? Or were they too sad for you? How about Lady and the Tramp or Fox and the Hound or 101 Dalmatians? If the answer to any of the above is yes, then I have the book for you! In fact, after watching this, you're going to wonder where Disney got a lot of their inspiration! Remember in 101 Dalmatians where the two dogs meet and inadvertantly get their masters involved? Check! We've got it right here! How about in Lady and the Tramp where the rat tries to get into the baby's cradle, and Tramp fights it all over the nursery? We've got a parallel here too - only the Disney writers must've decided to change a letter - in Thy Servant, A Dog, it's the household Cat who tries to get in with the baby.
I consider this book, Thy Servant, A Dog to be Rudyard Kipling's second most unexpected book ever. (I haven't talked about his most non-typical book yet - but I will soon! Don't worry.) In fact, I was absolutely astonished to find out that Rudyard Kipling wrote this charming, delightful, not-quite-written-in-English book. I mean, of course it's written in English - you can see that from the excerpt above - Kipling just played with it and made it his own.
This book gives us a rare opportunity to see inside the head of a dog and look at things through his eyes. It's a very interesting world from his point of view. What is even more interesting is the way Kipling wrote it so we as humans, if we read carefully, can detect subtle nuances of the situations that completely escape the dog's perception. For instance, after a particularly touching point in the book, Boots merely notes that the horse's saddle girth needs to be adjusted, but if you read it carefully, you get a clear picture of a deeply moved groom, busying himself with a trivial detail to give himself time to blink the tears out of his eyes. I call that mastery!
Do you have a dog? Then you'll love the clever little touches to Boots' character that makes every dog-owner laugh and shake his head. Boots eating grass and getting sick, Boots begging for scraps under the table, Boots feeling "uncomfy" when his owners are sad... The picture that is drawn is one of a loyal little dog, with a heart too big for his body, loving everyone in his world. (Except maybe for the cat!) I particularly love the way that Boots refers to his masters. "Own Gods" he calls them, quite consistently. I love it - it just radiates dog-ness!
Now, some notes about the book itself - it can be found online, because it is in the Public Domain. Want to read it? Click here for a link to the copy on Gutenberg Australia. Also, the book is made up of a number of shorter stories. My ravings only cover up until, but not including, Toby Dog. If you want a happy ending, stop before you read Toby Dog. I wanted a happy ending - but unfortunately nobody told me to stop there, so I read Toby Dog too. Perhaps it wouldn't have made me quite so sad, except that my cat right now is dying, so I'm a little touchy. Then the stories after Toby Dog look good, but I haven't read them yet. They're not about Boots, and he's the one I love, so he's the one I'm raving about. But certainly read the first two stories, and under no circumstances must you neglect to read the second of the two - The Great Play Hunt - it was absolutely delightful!
