dogs are like that / BY / JOHN VASSOS / WITH PHOTOGRAPHS BY / BETH DICKINSON / E.P. DUTTON AND COMPANY, INC., NEW YORK
250 X 185mm. Bound in red fine pebble grained cloth; plain endleaves; decor of "pointing" dog on lower right of front with title on spine stamped in gold; general layout by Vassos; set in Linotype Typography Caledonian; composed and printed by Golden Eagle Press; plates by Photogravure and Color Company. Collection of PDV, SUL.
1 half title 2 frontispiece of Vassos with dogs 3 title page 4 copyright notice 5 dedication to Art Joseph and his Belle 6 blank 7-8 foreword 9 half title 10 Dingo by Margaret Bourke White 11-107 text with photographs 108 photograph = 54 leaves
Printed on white stock, photographs by Margaret Bourke-White.
dogs are like that [are like that in red type] / photo of Dingo by Margaret Bourke-White / by john vassos [john vassos in red type]
dogs are like that by john vassos / DUTTON
Brief biography of Vassos: "John Vassos, is the well known industrial designer, painter, and illustrator of the Oscar Wilde trilogy – ‘Salome,' ‘Ballad of Reading Gaol,' and 'Harlot's House'; Coleridge's ‘Kubla Khan'; Grey's ‘Elegy'; co-author, with his wife, of ‘Ultimo,' ‘Contempo,' and ‘Humanities'; author and illustrator of ‘Phobia.'
John Vassos was brought up in Constantinople, educated at Robert College, and came to America at the close of the First World War, having served with the British Transport Service and later with the Suicide Fleet of the Royal Navy, sweeping mines in the North Sea.
He is a pioneer among the leading industrial designers in America; is credited with having created the first new school of illustration since Aubrey Beardsley. He painted the murals in the WCAU broadcasting station in Philadelphia; has exhibited in New York at the Riverside Museum, Montross Galleries, etc., and has had one man shows at the New School of Social Research and elsewhere.
He lives in Silvermine, Connecticut, is president of the Silvermine Guild of Artists, heads the American Designers Institute, and is president of the Hellenic Rod and Gun Club of New Jersey."
There is also a brief biography for the principle photographer of Dogs Are Like That, Beth Dickinson. Vassos is quoted as saying that "it was a happy coincidence that Beth Dickinson who is interested in animals and in photographing them in action lived near me. Her photographs make the dogs in this book come alive as words could never do."
The "blurb" which runs from the front to the rear abstracts the book, especially as it relates to the lives of Dingo and Rex, Rex's trainer Rush, and Rex's puppies. Rex and Dingo are the two principle dogs in the story.
This title also contains a second photo by Bourke-White on pg. 23. Aside from a mention in Dutton's 1941 "Catalogue of Publications," which listed the title at $2.50 in the "nature, outdoor, sports, and games" category, no other information on this title is available. A slip inserted into PDV's copy of the book by E.P. Dutton indicates that this was a review copy with the publication date given as November 10, 1941. Reviews were asked not to release their reviews before that date.
The book itself deals a great deal with Vassos and his experiences training and working with dogs, and how he came by his dogs, among them Rex and Lobo who would be the subject of a book of their own in 1946. From the "blurb":
"An informal, sincere and intensely personal story of a man, a woman, and their dogs, – the enormous German shepherd, Dingo, and the graceful setter, Rex – a story which will appeal to Americans everywhere who have ever owned or loved a dog...
Their neighbors said the house was haunted –the stairs creaked, the shutters rattled, and there were weird noises in the attic, and they were on a lonely road... ‘You ought to have a dog,' they said. So when John heard about Dingo, over on the Post Road, who daily risked his life to chase the flying cars, he offered him a quiet home removed from danger.
But the handsome, ninety-eight pound Dingo proved ‘a lot of dog' for two inexperienced people to handle, particularly two people with theories about how dogs, like humans ‘should be free.' Disciplining Dingo, while respecting the dogs' own ideas on the subject, was a really a man-sized job – but they loved it.
Dingo's notions, enthusiasms, idiosyncracies, soon became the main topic of conversation. For Dingo manifested the same zest for living in the back-country district he had shown in disciplining reckless drivers by chewing their rear tires on the Boston Post Road. At the Vassos' he went in for hunting, brought in rabbits, woodchucks, snakes, snapping turtles, a ‘possum, and a skunk. the ‘possum , left for dead by his captor disappeared, but the skunk, Dingo buried.
He had both friends and foes. He took a dislike to a visiting field mouse; he tolerated an imported horned toad from Texas. He fell in love with a wistful collie neighbor, an affair which landed him in jail, and he finally mated with the devoted Queenie, who bore him a most attractive family.
And when the young setter, Rex, joined the Vassos household, Dingo was puzzled, irritated and inclined to fight it out, but upon persuasion agreed to compromise on an armed truce.
The training of Rex, by Rush, will delight every owner and lover of these intelligent, sensitive dogs. ‘Watching a bird dog work is infinitely more thrilling,' says the author, ‘ than getting the bad limit.' Sporting adventures in field and swamp-land, hunting incidents with Rex in Connecticut and New Jersey, are related here with flashes of humor and bits of tender comment which give this book a most beguiling quality.
Raising Rex's puppies – the sons and daughters of the luckless Lady, and later his new mate Freckles is, in John Vassos' hands, no mere dog-breeder storey. ‘A layman's attempt at an analysis of the characters of two totally dissimilar dogs and their relationship to their owners and to each other.' he calls this book. But it is much more than that. It is the story of a delightful experience, freshly told and with appealing humor, which dog lovers – and all others – will find most welcome reading in these times."
