Gray Dawn

by Albert Payson Terhune, Wayne Lewis (Foreword)

Gray Dawn never does things as the others do, or as the others before him. He is extremely large and awkward. He possesses a mischievous edge that seems to forever get him into one fiasco after another, much to his Master's chagrin. Early on the Master is convinced that Gray Dawn is a hopeless case and is about to sell him to another breeder, despite his wife's protestations. But, as fate would have it, he is spared at the last moment by performing a courageous deed, which wins his Master's heart.

Genres: Fiction, Animals, Classics, Dogs, Childrens

208 pages, Unknown Binding

First published January 1, 1927

About the author

Albert Payson Terhune (1872 - 1942), a local author of some fame, wrote numerous adventures about Collies, most notably, "Lad, A Dog", "Sunnybank: Home of Lad", and "Further Adventures of Lad". Sunnybank, his home on the eastern shore of Pompton Lakes in northern New Jersey, was originally the home of Terhune's parents, Edward Payson Terhune and Mary Virginia Hawes Terhune. Later as his home with his wife, Anice Stockton Terhune, Sunnybank became famous as "The Place" in the many stories of Terhune. Much of the land once constituting the Sunnybank estate was lost to developers in the 1960's with the house being demolished in 1969. Fortunately though, the central 9.6 acres was preserved through the dedicated efforts of Terhune fans and dog fanciers, and is now Terhune Sunnybank Memorial Park, administered by the Wayne Township Parks Department.

Reviews

[Stephen Wallace · Rating 5 out of 5]

Albert Payson Terhune is the best author of dog books, and this one first published in 1920 is typical in most ways with his other dog books. He writes of a real dog he owns/has owned and then makes up stories around the dog. The Collie dog in this one is Gray Dawn, a puppy born in tragedy, who becomes a troublesome puppy then dog, but wins out in the end of each story. It is more just story telling than some of his other books where he has fun being more melodramatic. Some stories in this book are of the keystone cop type of comedy as the bad person gets what’s coming to them. The best thing is that in all the stories, Terhune turns the typical dog story on its head and twists the story in a different direction.

I will share some quotes I particularly enjoyed or tell themes common in Terhune’s books.

This next quote is when the Master is thinking of selling Gray Dawn to someone who breeds dogs for show. In other books Terhune has talked about the dog showing bug. In this bit he talks about the bad aspect of some who breed show dogs. I hope it is no longer the case with breeders.

‘Such dogs live in sanitary huts and runs. They eat sanitary balanced rations. Often they are trained, by a day or more of pitiful starvation, to look gluttonously alert in show ring. Their lives are about as interesting and jolly as the Congressional Record or the telephone directory. As a rule they die before they are nine years old; often much earlier. None of the gay independence of thought and action, the chumminess and the humanizing influences, which are a Collie’s birthright, are theirs, Their career is the stultifed and miserable career of the prize bull or the prize sheep. God help them!’

The Master is about to sell him because of perceived cowardice, but…

‘Great was Terror. But infinitely greater was Love. Paladins of old, bravely giving battle to fire-breathing dragons, had been spurred on by no purer courage.’

Another story revolves around a stuffed elephant toy. I think of all of us with dogs can relate to favorite toys of our dogs and their life span:

‘The dog’s strong jaws always closed with the most meticulous tenderness on the flannel. Despite this, the many and prolonged soft pressures presently changed the elephantine figure to a semishapeless wad. Dawn loved his plaything none the less for its loss of color and form. The passing of the days did not abate his fondness for it.’

This next bit is a teaser to one story. Normally this would be the punchline but not in this story:

“It was magnificent!” bellowed the father to all and sundry. “I saw the whole thing. Cleppy lost his footing when that scow hit us. Over he went into the river. Before he could reach the water this hero collie was overboard and after him. But for the dog, Cleppy would have been sucked under and drowned before the motor boat could get to him. It was glorious, I tell you!”

Terhune has been around generations of dogs and his experience and observations make his writing feel complexly genuine. It is also nice to when you have read his previous books on his other dogs to see the previous dogs referenced. I liked this next bit for those reasons as he talks about how Gray Down’s behavior when meeting new people differed from some of Terhune’s previous dogs:

‘He enjoyed meeting new people. He was intensely interested in everything that happened. That was all. He did not slip away unobtrusively, as did Bobby and as had Lad, when outsiders sought to pet him or to talk to him. He did not suffer such attentions with haughty aloofness, as did Bruce; nor greet them with a snarl and a flash of teeth, like Wolf. Neither did he repel advances with Treve’s melodramatically harmless growl.

He found mild pleasure in being admired and praised and in walking with stately benignity alongside of guests who were inspecting the rose garden or the kennels. But he felt not the faintest real fondness for such people. At heart he had all a true collie’s exclusiveness of loyalty.’

Several of the stories deal with bad people. As a dog lover, when someone seems willing to hurt or kill a dog it gets our blood boiling. In one, the villain is a dog catcher. He gets paid a dollar per dog he finds loose, but also a dollar per dog he has to put down if they are not claimed in 24 hours. It is also rumored he hid dogs in the cellar so owners wouldn’t see their dog to collect, and the dog catcher could collect that second dollar. In one part the dog catcher is on a boat in the lake and grabs Gray Dawn’s puppy owned by a frail little girl. Of course, Gray Dawn came to save the day, but the bad guy vows his revenge as any good villain would do:

"You mangy cur!” he mouthed, sputtering with wrath and from the water that trickled down from his hair into his nose and mouth. “I'll get you for this, if it takes me a year! I'll get you-----"

The stories of the dog being the hero and willing to brave their own fears never gets old to me, but what makes it exceptional is how with Terhune’s stories, it doesn’t end in the way you expect. Imagine if it was you sending the dog off into danger like the Mistress does here:

“Dawnie,” she told him, her sweet voice not quite level, “it all depends on you now. God never would have given you that steadfast look in the back of your eyes if you weren’t to be relied on to the death, Dawn. And perhaps it is ‘to the death,’ dear old friend. But it’s the only hope there is.

Lastly, I know some people want to know if Kleenex is needed at the end of the book. In this one like some of his other books, he has a couple of pages talking about the real dog. He mentions his life was only a short eight years. He finishes with:

‘Gray Dawn is one of the most lovable collies of all long Sunnybank line. He is not merely the professionally faithful dog of fiction, but rather—as the Mistress expresses it—an “own-your-own-soul dog.”

Within a pitifully small handful of years, at very most he will be gone. That is the way of dogs. All of them die too soon; though so many of us humans live too long. While still he is here, I want his stories to be read. Perhaps you may not like the stories. But I know you will like Dawn, himself. Everyone does.‘

[Peggie · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this book for the first time probably around fifty years ago, smitten as a kid with an obsession with all things Terhune. In my recent reaquaintance with his writings and life, chiefly through The Sunnybank Memorial group and their yearly gatherings at Sunnybank, I have decided to re-read the old Terhune classics. Gray Dawn did not disappoint. In his rather archaic prose, Terhune tells the story of a bumptious clown of a dog, who underneath his bumbling, possesses the classic Terhune-esque perfection of heart and soul and courage which separates him from the average dog. This book was written in decidedly non-politically-correct style, but possesses the old magic that draws out the dog-crazy youngster still within me.

[Diệu Hương · Rating 5 out of 5]

Bình Minh Xám có lẽ là một trong những chú chó độc đáo nhất trong những câu chuyện mình từng đọc về những chú chó, bởi nó không phải là một chú chó xuất sắc như Buck, Kazan hay Nanh Trắng, nó là một đứa siêu hậu đậu, vụng về và hay phá bĩnh những lúc quan trọng. Thế nhưng, những lúc cần thiết thì nó lại trở nên thông minh và dũng cảm không kém gì những chú chó kể trên. Nói chung là một câu chuyện đáng đọc.

[Jim Patterson · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was published in 1927. The story is about a silver/gray Collie named Gray Dawn. I liked this “runt” in a litter of eight. He appears to turn things around with bad to good behavior. He takes on the image of a Collie much like Lassie. A very good read with exception to the old English text.

[Lieu Nguyen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Bình Minh Xám rất đặc biệt. Thật ra mỗi con chó trong nhà Sunnybank đều rất đặc biệt. Bản chuyển ngữ của anh Vũ Danh Tuấn thì thật sự xuất sắc.
Xám hồn nhiên, "phổi bò", thẳng thắn và cực kỳ táo bạo.
"Mọi điều kỳ cục mà nó làm, trước sau rồi cũng kết thúc đẹp đẽ"

[Vu Minh Thu · Rating 5 out of 5]

“Nếu anh đã bơi vượt được Đại Tây Dương thì liệu anh có còn sợ phải lội qua vũng bùn nữa không?”
Và “Chỉ có tình yêu mới có thể đẩy một con chó thuần chủng vào chỗ chết.”

[Timothy Rg · Rating 4 out of 5]

The penultimate chapter, "the Tartar-Catcher" is a great standalone read for any nonbelievers.

[Audrey E. Simonson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Really enjoyed the stories and hate to have the book end

Really enjoyed the stories and hate to have the book end. I read
The Way of a Dog first. Enjoyed it.

[Jeri Massi · Rating 4 out of 5]

The biggest draw of GRAY DAWN for young readers is that he starts out as "the underdog," not respected by his own master. Gray Dawn's struggle to find his courage is one that many adults may pass off as too corny, but I think children will find it as meaningful now as they ever did . Gray Dawn, the cowardly puppy who desperately wants to be liked, discovers that when the person he loves is in danger, he is as brave as his master could wish. And that link, of love to courage, is such a priceless lesson to children today, when courage is perceived as swaggering and boasting and having big muscles, that any parent should jump to get a story that tells the real truth about courage.

Indeed, GRAY DAWN is the Terhune book that, I think, most clearly talks about love as a transforming element and also as that bedrock on which all goodness rests. Yes, Gray Dawn is a clown, and a foolish dog in many ways, but every time it comes down to what he loves, he grows one step further and does the right thing. Terhune can sometimes over-hammer his points home, but for the most part he does not do so in this book. Children readers have here a story about all the antics and adventures of a dog, but GRAY DAWN is also about growing up and taking on mature responsibilities, about being yourself as much as you want as long as your heart is true to your loved ones.

In spite of a dated narrative and a writing style that is, at times, heavy handed, I think this is the best of Terhune's books because Gray Dawn really does face what all growing children face: bullies, and terrors, and people who lie to them and try to hurt them, and dear friends, and family, and funny situations, and the joy of being alive. And Gray Dawn, like the reader, is not perfect, and that's refreshing. But in the end, he comes through.

[Lisa Rathbun]

This book belonged to my father when he was a boy. I found it on the shelf in his old bedroom, read it, and fell in love with the collie and his amazing, thrilling adventures. Much later, I read a review of Terhune that was most unflattering and if I were to read this as an adult, I'm sure I'd find parts that are politically incorrect and parts about dogs that are just smarmy. Still though, I remember chapter after chapter of this brave dog's escapades.

[7$MartyQ · Rating 5 out of 5]

An Incredible dog

I live not twenty miles from where these stories were written over eighty years ago. The home that was "The Place" has been plowed down to make way for route 17. Never before not after would such a number of grand Collies all come from one place. Though "The Place" is long gone now, it lives on in wo

[Barb · Rating 4 out of 5]

Read all these as a kid. Fun to read again. Difference in language used since this was written in 1920's. Grey Dawn was one of my favorites.

[Irl Newham · Rating 5 out of 5]

Do remember this one, loved it!

[Rich Brown · Rating 5 out of 5]

These books are some of my all-time favorites.

[Kathy · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love all of Terhune's dog books. This book is about one of the last of the great Sunnybank collies, Gray Dawn.