Farley Mowat

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The Story of Mutt

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It would be much simpler to describe ["The Dog Who Wouldn't Be"] as a dog story, a good tale about an unusual dog, and let it go at that. But Mutt wasn't just a dog—indeed, as Farley Mowat says, Mutt was never content with being just a dog; he always wanted to be something more, and he pretty well succeeded. This is a good deal more than a dog story, for it is the story of a boy and his parents and dozens of neighbors and friends, tame and wild, human and almost-human. And it is a story about Canada, both the high, dry plains and the well watered area.

Mutt was a dog that Farley Mowat's mother bought from a small boy peddling baby ducks. The pup was an afterthought and cost Mrs. Mowat four cents…. This is his story, with the variations noted above; it is, in a sense, also the story of the Mowat family during a number of turbulent, fantastic years. Mutt was naturally in the midst of every predicament, every trial, every triumph.

Life in Canada, particularly in Saskatchewan, was much like life in the Midwest in the United States at the same time, some thirty years ago. And young Farley was a typical boy…. Farley and his father, and Mutt of course, had such duck hunts as never before occurred. They had vacations on a dry-land slough, with Mutt making new traditions, new folk lore. Mutt retrieved a stuffed partridge and won a fantastic bet. Mutt climbed ladders and trees, learned to walk fence-tops like a cat….

If this seems to be the usual material of boy-dog tales, set that down to the deadening effect of summarization. Add to it the nature lore—Farley Mowat is a naturalist of note—and the human anecdote, salt it all with uninhibited humor, and you have a grand tale, one of the best stories of boyhood this reviewer has read in a long time.

Hal Borland, "The Story of Mutt," in The New York Times Book Review (© 1957 by The New York Times Company; reprinted by permission), August 18, 1957, p. 10.

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