Book Review | ‘Dogland: Passion, Glory, and Lots of Slobber at the Westminster Dog Show’ by Tommy Tomlinson

A Tale Told with Humor, Poignancy, Vivid Description, and Heart

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As I was reading Tommy Tomlinson’s Dogland: Passion, Glory, and Lots of Slobber at the Westminster Dog Show, something delightful and ridiculous — at least in name — stuck its long schnoz into my lap, demanding pets. It was our silken windhound, a real breed (at least UKC recognized), bred mostly from borzois and whippets to create a smaller borzoi. And sure, Archie’s hair is sweetly soft, and he can run like the wind with that double suspension gallop that sighthounds share, but c’mon. Silken windhound?

That is all to say I’m not going to be objective in the least writing about Tomlinson’s book, for I’m a dog person through and through.

Of course I’m not alone in that canine love. Tomlinson informs us there’s one dog for every four people in the U.S. — just one of the many well-researched tidbits he sprinkles like pills of information hidden inside all the other treats of the book that explore, well, happiness of all things. When he runs through the possible ways wolves evolutionarily decided to play nice with humans — there’s a debate — he ends with, “we domesticated dogs, and they domesticated us.”

The book’s through line centers on the last run of a prized Samoyed, Striker, as he and his handler Laura King try to take the top prize at the 2022 Westminster Dog Show, the granddaddy of them all, established in1877. The thrilling suspense of what might happen gives Tomlinson a narrative thread on which to hang all sorts of considerations about the human-dog connection, about show dogs versus pet dogs, about the Platonic ideal versus the mangy mutts who cuddle with us at home.

For the stated goal of a Westminster winner is to best meet a breed standard. “It’s as if humans decided that George Clooney was the consummate man,” Tomlinson writes, “and we measure all other men by which ones were the Clooneyest.” The term is conformation, but Tomlinson realizes us humans don’t completely care about that. He asserts, “Some dogs can create joy out of nothing and the joy is transferable.” And then discusses the Samoyed smile, in particular Striker’s — “it looks like he’s reliving a fond memory, like a choice piece of steak or an especially pleasurable hump.”

That last joke isn’t just a cheap grab for laughs, as it underlines one of Tomlinson’s notions about the state of anthrozoology — we love our dogs as they help us get closer to our animal. While they force us into routine — feeding time, walk time — they also open us to chaos — time to buy a new, unchewed couch. And, eventually, since we know their lives are shorter than ours, they insist we grapple with mortality. “Maybe this is why the emotion can get so out of whack, why so many people cry harder over a dog than over the people they love,” Tomlinson surmises. “Any relationship with another human being is complicated. But losing a dog snatches away something pure. The loss of a family member means more. The loss of a dog can hurt more.”

Tomlinson deftly illustrates that point about two-thirds of the way through the book with a chapter about his family’s dog. Fred’s tale encapsulates all the book’s strengths — humor, poignancy, vivid description, heart. Fred’s goodbye is just one of three very different but equally touching that the book offers in its last third, adding more heft to a quick read you will laugh out loud with frequently (heck, one of the book’s opening epigraphs is “Bow wow wow yippee yo yippee yay” from George Clinton’s “Atomic Dog”). He might name check Emily Dickinson and Joe Posnanski, John Wick and Jason Isbell along the way, but Tomlinson also makes the case for a dog as the corner piece of the jigsaw puzzle of a life, as ESPN’s Scott Van Pelt puts it.

Like life with any beloved canine, Dogland will make you tear up at the end, but along the way there’ll be between chapter Pee Breaks allowing for listicles ranging from rankings of dog haters to dogs from myth and legend; lots of sports metaphors (handler Laura and show dog Striker “move together, side by side, like ice dancers”); and dissections of essential pop culture, particularly Christoper Guest’s biting satire Best in Show and the off-color lampoon of Robert Smigel’s Triumph the Insult Comic Dog.

Outside of a dog, Dogland is man’s best friend. Inside Dogland, it’s easy to insist we bestow the author the honorific CH Tommy Tomlinson.

This review originally appeared in the California Review of Books.