Notable Canine Quotables

By Lorraine Houston

This issue of Dogs, Dogs, Dogs! focuses on puppies, which are one of the more popular topics, the newspaper covers. The reader looks forward to opening this edition with great anticipation to learn about the latest information on socialization, nutrition, training tips and the likes. Now let’s just say its deadline time and a writer, who shall remain nameless, doesn’t have an article on this subject ready – have I mentioned what an honour and pleasure it is to write for Dogs, Dogs, Dogs? Okay, I admit, it’s me and I will take 100 lashes with a wet, slobbery rawhide for my inadequacies but I do have something to offer and I don’t think you will be disappointed. In any case, the word puppy is in my article, so hopefully that counts for something. I believe you will be inspired and moved by most, if not all the quotes I stumbled across while doing research for another dog-related project. I’m sure you may have read some of them before, but there are many I had never before seen. This article will definitely come in handy if you cross paths with someone who does not understand or appreciate the deep bond you share with your dog because you can show them the quotes (or simply memorize and recite them when the need arises) and say “I’m in extremely good company when it comes to the love of dogs.”

There is no psychiatrist in the world like a puppy licking your face. ~Ben Williams

The dog is a gentleman; I hope to go to his heaven, not man's - Mark Twain

No matter how little money and how few possessions you own, having a dog makes you rich. - Louis Sabin

When a man's best friend is his dog, that dog has a problem - Edward Abbey

The average dog is a nicer person than the average person - Andrew A. Rooney

I care not for a man's religion whose dog and cat are not the better for it - Abraham Lincoln

I think dogs are the most amazing creatures; they give unconditional love. For me they are the role models for being alive. - Gilda Radner

I love a dog. He does nothing for political reasons - Will Rogers

What has been accomplished by Ontario's pit bull ban is that the government has been allowed to avoid the more difficult task of regulating human behaviour and finding the resources to educate the public in a meaningful way. - Clayton C. Ruby, Lawyer for the legal challenge against the Ontario government.

I like dogs better [than people]. They give you unconditional love. They either lick your face or bite you, but you always know where they're coming from. With people, you never know which ones will bite. The difference between dogs and men is that you know where dogs sleep at night - Greg Louganis

You think dogs will not be in heaven? I tell you, they will be there long before any of us - Robert Louis Stevenson

Politics are not my concern... they impressed me as a dog's life without a dog's decencies - Rudyard Kipling

If you pick up a starving dog and make him prosperous, he will not bite you; that is the principal difference between a dog and a man - Mark Twain

No man can be condemned for owning a dog. As long as he has a dog, he has a friend; and the poorer he gets, the better friend he has - Will Rogers

A dog is not almost human, and I know of no greater insult to the canine race than to describe it as such - John Holmes

Recollect that the Almighty, who gave the dog to be companion of our pleasures and our toils, hath invested him with a nature noble and incapable of deceit - Sir Walter Scott

If dogs could talk, perhaps we would find it as hard to get along with them as we do with people - Karel Capek

Children and dogs are as necessary to the welfare of the country as Wall Street and the railroads - Harry S Truman

The one absolutely unselfish friend that man can have in this selfish world, the one that never deserts him, the one that never proves ungrateful or treacherous, is his dog. . . He will kiss the hand that has no food to offer; he will lick the wounds and sores that come in encounter with the roughness of the world. . . .When all other friends desert, he remains - George G Vest

If I have any beliefs about immortality, it is that certain dogs I have known will go to heaven, and very, very few persons - James Thurber

Some of my best leading men have been dogs and horses - Elizabeth Taylor

Heaven goes by favor. If it went by merit, you would stay out and your dog would go in - Mark Twain

Dogs are our link to paradise. They don't know evil or jealousy or discontent. To sit with a dog on a hillside on a glorious afternoon is to be back in Eden, where doing nothing was not boring - it was peace - Milan Kundera

A dog is the only thing on earth that loves you more than you love yourself - Josh Billings

Man is a dog's idea of what God should be - Holbrook Jackson

The more one gets to know of men, the more one likes dogs. - A Toussenel

The dog represents all that is best in man - Etienne Charlet

Our dogs will love and admire the meanest of us, and feed our colossal vanity with their uncritical homage - Agnes Replier

You can say any fool thing to a dog, and the dog will give you this look that says, `My God, you're RIGHT! I NEVER would've thought of that!'" - Dave Barry

I once decided not to date a guy because he wasn't excited to meet my dog. I mean, this was like not wanting to meet my mother. - Bonnie Schacter, Founder of the Single Pet Owner's Society Singles Group

They [dogs] never talk about themselves but listen to you while you talk about yourself, and keep up an appearance of being interested in the conversation. - Jerome K. Jerome

To err is human, to forgive, canine. – Unknown

I hope if dogs ever take over the world, and they chose a king, they don't just go by size, because I bet there are some Chihuahuas with some good ideas. - "DEEP THOUGHTS" by Jack Handy

He is your friend, your partner, your defender, your dog. You are his life, his love, his leader. He will be yours, faithful and true, to the last beat of his heart. You owe it to him to be worthy of such devotion. – Unknown

Dogs are not our whole life, but they make our lives whole. - Roger Caras

My goal in life is to become as wonderful as my dog thinks I am. - Toby & Eileen Green

A dog has lots of friends because he wags his tail and not his tongue. - Anonymous

If you get to thinking you're a person of some influence, try ordering somebody else's dog around. ~Will Rogers

Near this spot are deposited the remains of one who possessed Beauty without Vanity, Strength without Insolence, Courage without Ferocity, and all the Virtues of Man, without his Vices. This Praise, which would be unmeaning Flattery if inscribed over human ashes, is but a just tribute to the Memory of Boatswain, a Dog. ~George Gordon, Lord Byron, "Inscription on the Monument of a Newfoundland Dog"

Give a needy dog a second chance, it’s the first rate thing to do – Lorraine Houston

Lorraine Houston is a feature writer for Dogs, Dogs, Dogs! and an evaluator for Therapeutic Paws of Canada and St. John Ambulance Therapy Dogs. She is a member of the Etobicoke Humane Society’s dog adoption team and the director of Speaking of Dogs, an organization devoted to education, outreach and rescue. A Maxwell Award winner from Dog Writers Assoc. of America, Lorraine lives in Don Mills with her husband, two sons and family dogs. She may be contacted at lhh4dogs@rogers.com or through www.speakingofdogs.com