Children’s Picture book (mid-1970s or earlier). Dog separated from his girl owner (too poor? he got lost?). He has adventures incl. a bad new owner. They're reunited many years later when she's a young woman and he's an old dog. Bittersweet ending. > Likes and Comments

This is a tricky one! I’ve thought about this for years, and never been able to track it down, even using keywords on Worldcat. Here’s what I remember:

- I read it sometime in the mid-seventies (U.S.). It could be older, since we had lots of older books in our house.
- It’s a picture book. To the best of my memory, the illustrations were bright-ish colors and relatively simple, maybe even cartoonish. Like a Golden Book.
- The setting might be “long ago” instead of modern—I don’t remember anything like cars in the pictures. But I’m not positive.
- The dog had to leave his girl owner, I think because they were too poor to take care of him? Or maybe he got lost and was always trying over the years to get back to her. Not sure.
- The main story is about the dog’s adventures over the years. All I remember is that at one point he finds a new owner who mistreats him. The phrase “Man’s Best Friend” or “Home Sweet Home” might be somewhere in that picture as the dog skulks away, almost like a kid’s first introduction to irony.
- There might be a boat involved. The dog might reunite with his past owner on a boat at the end.
- When he finally reunites with her, it’s SUPER bittersweet. His owner is grown up now and better off and she's totally able to take care of him now (yay), but he’s an old dog now and not able to run around and play with her as much as he used to (boo). I KNOW! Super-tear-jerky, right? The emotional scarring is probably why I still remember it. I can’t believe it’s not a lesser-known William Steig, but it doesn’t seem to be.

So? Any thoughts? Thank you for thinking about this one!

bump

bump!

My Dog Zeke?

Little Dog Lost?

Chris, I added some plot details to the topic header, so your book might be recognized from that description alone. Many members only read the headers.

Feel free to update it by clicking the small "edit" link after the header. This only works on the full Desktop website - not the Mobile website or app. (On the Mobile website, there's a "Desktop version" link at the bottom of the page.)

- Do you recall the woman's job or if she's married with kids?

Rainbowheart wrote: "My Dog Zeke?

Little Dog Lost?"

Hi Rainbowheart, thank you for suggesting! I checked them out, but neither is it, unfortunately. (Both of those books seem to have lots of full pages of text, which is more than the picture book I'm remembering.)

Kris wrote: "Chris, I added some plot details to the topic header, so your book might be recognized from that description alone. Many members only read the headers.

Feel free to update it by clicking the small..."

Thank you Kris! That summary looks great to me. At the end of the story when the girl is now a young woman, I don't recall the book mentioning her having a job although I believe she is better off than she'd been (maybe she owns the boat they possibly reunite on, maybe she's a princess now, who knows!). I don't remember her having her own family, although it's possible.

You're welcome.

After nearly six years... bump! (I still haven't figured this one out!)

Jiggers?

Interesting, I hadn't come across that one!

Not it, since years (!) don't seem to pass while the dog is lost, and Jiggers is also more from the perspective of the girl/owner than the dog. If I had to guess, I'd say the book I'm thinking of is also more recent (60s/70s) and simpler in illustration style. But who knows! Thank you for trying!

I'll keep looking!

Can you remember the breed of dog? Or size or color?

I wish I could! (And thank you for looking!!) I'm thinking the pictures were simple and colorful, so it might have been more of a medium, earth-toned, platonic form of a dog (labrador-ish?) than an identifiable breed. But that's more of a guess than anything.

The Dog That Lost His Family?

The main character appears to be a boy, though.

Wow, that's a deep cut! I love this detail:

A 1961 Kirkus Review described it as a "somewhat dry and tedious story" featuring a "monotony of barking".

I don't think that's it, since the description says the dog is at the end reunited with "young Johnny" which (on top of Johnny being a boy) makes me guess it's not a years-long separation. I also wonder if the story I'm thinking of is more "timeless" -- no moving vans or 20th century technology, for example -- but I can't be sure...

But these guesses have me excited--we'll figure it out!...

I'm sure we can track it down!

Kashtanka and Foxie, the Singing Dog have similarities, but the owner isn't a girl.

Do you remember if the dog was male or female?

Fascinating! No that's not them--not quite enough of those details line up, like you said, and the original owners didn't purposefully mistreat the dog--but those are really cool stories. Foxie seems to be a retelling of Kashtanka.

I don't recall the dog's gender--if I had to guess, maybe male? And maybe the family that the dog was separated from for years consisted of a girl and her father? I feel pretty confident that it was a girl owner, at least. This is a tough one!

Hurry Home, Candy?
Lassie Come-Home?
A Dog's Life: Autobiography of a Stray?
Flawed Dogs: The Shocking Raid on Westminster?
Dog Lost by Ingrid Lee (7-Jan-2008) Paperback?

Nothing matches up quite right with either the ending or the publication date but still.

"Hurry Home Candy" is such an interesting one... It's not a picture book (and none of the drawings in the book match my memories of the pictures), and there's no reunion with a grown-up girl when the dog is old, which I can vividly remember seeing on the page. BUT the overall arc and feel of it is so similar, I wouldn't be surprised if the picture book were somehow related, but so far no dice.

It turns out there was a Disney TV movie based on "Hurry Home Candy" called "Little Dog Lost", but none of the books with that title match what I'm thinking of either.

Such a mystery!

Long shot, but does anything on the Picture Books About Dogs list look familiar?

Oh that was a brilliant idea. SO many books in that list. I spent a while looking through them, but alas, nothing! I'm racking my brain trying to think of another path to try or any other detail...