Dog Walk Dog
Huzzah for dog anthologies! Well, pet anthologies in general, as there aren’t nearly enough cat anthologies in the world for my tastes. This one has a collection of fantastical tales involving dogs of some kind (no mushy autobio stuff here) along with a few photos of dogs. Things start off with a story by Patrick Keck about a humanoid dog walking another dog, having a perfectly lovely afternoon or evening. The humanoid dog reminisces about his dog when he was a kid and how he was sorry about how he was only rarely able to let it into the house, which was odd as the humanoid dog was apparently a human boy as a child, but I shouldn’t get wrapped up in such things. Next up is “Woof” by Tom Van Deusen, which probably unnerved me more than was the intention of the story. It’s about a dog and his animal friends playing in a band and having a BBQ, which all sounds perfectly nice, but the way that all of these creatures’ mouths were all the way open when they talked (along with the casual way that the alligator at the deli counter scarfed down a squirrel customer) was more than a little disturbing. And that’s not even getting into his representation of God at the end of the story, or the way his/her/its mouth was a black void of stars, or the horrible dead eyes. Yes, this is more likely to be my own odd hang-ups than the actual meaning of the story, but that’s all I have to work with here. August Lipp has a short piece next about dogs on their humping schedule (of legs, that is), then Karissa Sakumoto tells the story of a half dog, half man creature and how it is unloved in either world. Another one that’s a little creepy, but it was thoroughly engaging. There’s also a centerfold with a new interpretation of the famous dogs playing poker painting, just in case such a thing would push you over the edge into checking this out, you weirdo you. You have to be a fan of the particular animal for most pet anthologies, but for this one you’d be just fine if you hated dogs, what with all the general insanity going on. No price listed, but maybe $3 at a complete guess?
