Stephen Wallace

“A hound has a genuine and profound distrust of the general scheme of things in this life. Melancholy of an ancient and appealing sort is his. What makes his pessimism worthy of regard is the fact that it has its source in remarkably sagacity. His honest and steadfast refusal to be optimistic not only lends to his character a noble severity but also gives to his philosophy the serene charm of truth. He invariably seems to me to belong to an older and a wiser generation, which regards the behavior of all other living things as an exceedingly juvenile performance. A hound is the only dog that can make me self-conscious of my own ridiculousness. Fixed by his appraising eye, I shrink into my true stature.”
― Archibald Rutledge, Bird Dog Days, Wingshooting Ways

“I think back, too, on the strange views that many people held about cats. They were selfish creatures reserving their affections only for situations which would benefit them, and they were incapable of the unthinking love a dog dispenses. They were totally self-contained creatures who looked after their own interests only. What nonsense! I have felt cats rubbing their faces against mine and touching my cheek with claws carefully sheathed. These things, to me are expressions of love.”
― James Herriot, James Herriot's Cat Stories

“Skiing behind a team of dogs allowed me to study them for hours, and my understanding of their personalities blossomed as I saw them perform under stress or face new challenges on the trail. I saw who was brave all the time and who put up a good bluff. I saw them working hard to ignore a pest or boost the spirits of their running mate. I saw them being lazy or holding back until just when they chose—and then giving over their whole heart and soul to pulling. I learned who ran best in wheel and who was most content just being somewhere in the middle of the group. I learned that coaching a troupe of dogs, to work them as a team, was much mor complex, delightfully complex, then I had ever imagined.”
― Lisa Frederic, Running With Champions: A Midlife Journey on the Iditarod Trail

“While I have great respect for the pointing breeds, I remain a hopeless afficionado of the Labrador retriever. I love Labs; don’t ask me to explain. We just seem to understand each other and to approach the world with a fundamentally similar set of priorities, an admission with which certain co-workers and an ex-wife would no doubt agree. Because I make it a point to live in places where I can hunt a lot, my kennel has to be productive. It also has to be versatile, since any given day here on the prairie might provide the opportunity to hunt everything from Huns to geese. Sure, I could have Labs and more traditional upland bird dogs, but every place in the kennel occupied by something other than a Lab would be. well, one less Lab in my life.”
― E. Donnall Thomas Jr., Fool Hen Blues: Retrievers & Shotguns and the American West