Dog trainer David Riggs and his Lab, Rocky, in Montana.
Dog rescuer Randy Grim, founder of Stray Rescue of St. Louis, rescued an emaciated Pit Bull in East St. Louis.
Casey and I hiking in Gunnison, Colorado.
Acknowledgments
THOUGH I traveled around the country with a dog (and then two dogs), it took a village of humans to keep me alive and on schedule—and to help me complete the book when I returned home.
The biggest thanks go to Egan Millard and Jenny Kutner, two dog-loving young writers/journalists without whose help I’d surely still be holed up in my messy home office, trying to finish the manuscript while Casey sighs, exasperated, at my feet.
A number of other folks helped in important ways, whether it was researching a certain topic or pointing me toward an article or book I shouldn’t miss. Special thanks to Adam Polaski, Nick Lehr, Joe Caputo, Brandon Ambrosino, Myles Tanzer, Taylor Grow, Hayden Wright, Seth Putnam, and August Thompson.
A handful of friends read the manuscript (in part or in full) and offered valuable suggestions. I am grateful to Bob Smith, Kevin Sessums, Jameson Fitzpatrick, Rachel Kadish, Matt Heller, Henry Paul Belanger, Zach Wichter, Neil Savage, Sam Bickett, Bryan Lowder, Darcia Murrish, Zac Bissonnette, Ian Shin, Kate Beutner, Duncan Roy, Dietrich Warner, and Dave Ford. And a very big thank-you to my good friend James Doty, a man who dislikes most dogs but who nonetheless edited my manuscript with aplomb, only occasionally complaining that he’d rather be watching the Tennis Channel.
My cross-country journey would have been significantly less fun without brief visits from Garrett Beltis and Sam Reid, who brought me much-needed company and levity. (Garrett gets bonus points for taking amazing pictures and videos of our time in the Southwest.)
A number of dog people generously helped me plan my journey, suggesting places, people, and dogs I shouldn’t miss—these helpful humans include Amy and Rod Burkert, Bob Aniello, James Serpell, Alice Kaplan, Stephanie Hunnicutt, Buck Johnston, Ryan Clinton, Kelly Hardie, Dr. Joel Gavriele-Gold, Julie Hecht, Christopher Castellani, Leslie Smith, Lucy Maloney, Joseph Dwyer Jr., David Yaskulka, Kelly Ausland, and Lynne Ouchida.
Though my El Monte motorhome was comfortable, I rarely turned down an offer to sleep in a bedroom without wheels. I’m grateful for the generosity of Riverbend Hot Springs in New Mexico, the Flint Hill Public House & Country Inn in Virginia, the Sorrento Hotel in Seattle, and the Kimpton Monaco hotels in Portland and Chicago. A handful of friends also offered me food and shelter. Special thanks to Darcia Murrish, Mike Guadagno, Rob Hoiting, and Brant Granger and Neil Ingalls.
I spent time with many amazing people on my journey, but I want to thank two in particular—Randy Grim and Beth Joy Knutsen—for their support and friendship. I also had the privilege of meeting the staff and volunteers at many great rescue and dog organizations, not all of whom I was able to write about in the book. Thanks to the folks at Austin Pets Alive!, San Antonio Pets Alive!, Animal Rescue New Orleans, Best Friends Animal Sanctuary, the Dakin Pioneer Valley Humane Society, Gabriel’s Angels, freekibble.com, and dogtime.com.
I’m grateful to photographers Amanda Jones and Brad DeCecco, who contributed photographs for the book. Amanda took the wonderful picture of Casey on the cover.
Though I failed in my efforts to get a fuel sponsor for my trip, other great companies stepped up with generous support: El Monte offered me a discount on a motorhome, Halo Purely for Pets sent me enough dog food to feed Casey (and then Rezzy), and Kampgrounds of America gave me free passes to many of its locations.
A writer needs time to write, and I was fortunate to receive support from The MacDowell Colony, The College of Wooster, and Emerson College (where I teach in the department of Writing, Literature & Publishing).
As usual, the team at Simon & Schuster—including editor Bob Bender and publisher Jonathan Karp—made the book writing and editing process a pleasant one (or as pleasant as book writing and editing can be). Thanks also to my longtime agent, Todd Shuster, who never wavers in his support.
Finally, and most importantly, I want to thank Casey and Rezzy. The dogs of my dreams, to be sure.
Also by Benoit Denizet-Lewis
For nearly three years acclaimed journalist Benoit Denizet-Lewis immersed himself in the lives of eight addicts as they battled their addictions to drugs, alcohol, food, gambling and sex. Alternating their stories with his own candid account of recovery from sexual addiction, Denizet-Lewis explores the inner struggles of addicts with honesty and empathy. “Benoit Denizet-Lewis writes with an impressive mix of transparency and compassion about the addict's eternal battle between will and action. He sees deep into the sadness of desperate people, and equally deep into the systems that redeem such sadness. This is an intimate, compelling volume.” —Andrew Solomon, author of Far From the Tree: Parents, Children, and the Search for Identity
America Anonymous
* * *
One of the most perceptive and interesting journalists writing today, Benoit Denizet-Lewis takes us into some unusual precincts of American society in this collection, where youth culture and sexuality often intersect. “I expected reading American Voyeur to be a guilty pleasure, but Denizet-Lewis’s compassion and involvement swept all the guilt away and left the pleasure!” —Barbara Ehrenreich, author of Living with a Wild God: A Nonbeliever's Search for the Truth about Everything
American Voyeur
* * *
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BENOIT DENIZET-LEWIS writes for The New York Times Magazine and is an assistant professor of Writing, Literature & Publishing at Emerson College. He is the author of two previous books, America Anonymous, an exploration of addiction and recovery, and American Voyeur, a collection of his previously published writing. He splits his time between Jamaica Plain and Provincetown, MA.
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Notes
PROLOGUE
“in all likelihood dogs do not make”: Caroline Knapp, Pack of Two: The Intricate Bond Between People and Dogs (New York: Delta, 1998), p. 108.
In an article he wrote trumpeting: Joel Gavriele-Gold, “Dogs in a Psychologist’s Office,” AKC Gazette, July 1993. Article available on Gavriele-Gold’s website, http://www.drjoelgold.com/gazette.html.
“the unconscious act of putting”: Joel Gavriele-Gold, When Pets Come Between Partners (New York: Howell Book House, 2000), p. 5.
“someone might fear”: Ibid.
CHAPTER 1
“There is a hope that a dog injects”: John Zeaman, Dog Walks Man: A Six-Legged Odyssey (Connecticut: Lyons Press, 2010), p. ix.
“always want to take”: Roger Grenier (translated by Alice Kaplan), The Difficulty of Being a Dog (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2000), p. 25.
“She was the only one in our room”: Associated Press, Jan. 5, 2012.
a study by psychologist: A. Horowitz, “Disambiguating the ‘Guilty Look’: Salient Prompts to a Familiar Dog Behavior,” Behavioural Processes 81, no. 3 (2009): 447–52.
You gonna eat that?: Karen Shepard, “Birch,” in Amy Hempel and Jim Shepard, eds., Unleashed: Poems by Writers’ Dogs (New York: Crown, 2007), p. 30
.
Judges in animal disputes tend to rule in favor of women: Stanley Coren, The Modern Dog: A Joyful Exploration of How We Live with Dogs Today (New York: Free Press, 2008), p. 184.
“a dog is the legal equivalent”: Ibid., p. 182.
a “child substitute”: Orange County Superior Court Judge John Wooley said this in 1983, as reported by the Associated Press.
In one unusual custody dispute: Coren, The Modern Dog, p. 184.
Massachusetts law that forbids frightening a pigeon: Section 132 of Chapter 266 of the General Laws of Massachusetts.
“a kind of victory over the anonymity”: Mary Battiata, “Lassie Go Home,” Washington Post, May 30, 1999.
“And I know where they go, these women”: Amy Hempel, “In the Animal Shelter,” The Collected Stories of Amy Hempel (New York: Scribner, 2006), p. 157.
the demographic group least likely: Coren, The Modern Dog, p. 232.
“the iconic American road book”: Bill Steigerwald, “Sorry, Charley,” Reason, April 2011.
“He just sat in his camper”: Charles McGrath, “A Reality Check for Steinbeck and Charley,” New York Times, April 4, 2011.
believes Steinbeck “made up most of the book”: Ibid.
“Charley is a born diplomat”: John Steinbeck, Travels with Charley (New York: Penguin, 2012), pp. 5–6.
“would rather travel about than anything he can imagine”: Ibid., p. 6.
“A journey is a person in itself”: Ibid., p. 1.
The New York Times noted in 1990: Andy Grundberg, “Coping; With Pet Portraiture,” New York Times, June 30, 1990.
“it is a difficult matter to get”: “In Amateur Photography’s Field,” New York Times, March 15, 1891.
in one study, nearly 70 percent of four-year-olds: K. Meints et al., “How to Prevent Dog Bite Injuries? Children Misinterpret Dogs’ Facial Expressions,” Injury Prevention 16 (2010): A68.
“each speaking our own native ‘language’ ”: Patricia McConnell, The Other End of the Leash: Why We Do What We Do Around Dogs (New York: Ballantine, 2002), p. xviii.
“The tendency to want to hug something”: Ibid., p. xxi.
“on the way to somewhere else, somewhere better”: Rick Moody, State by State: A Panoramic Portrait of America (New York: Ecco, 2009), p. 67.
“Of all the beautiful towns”: Mark Twain, in a letter to The Alta California, Sept. 6, 1868.
Pynchon later recounted in an article for Connecticut Quarterly: W. H. C. Pynchon, Connecticut Quarterly, April/June 1898.
Yale professor Blair Kauffman told the Yale Daily News: Nikita Lalwani, “YLS Dog Rentals to Continue,” Yale Daily News, April 21, 2001.
who rank seventy-seventh out of seventy-nine in dog intelligence: Stanley Coren, The Intelligence of Dogs: A Guide to the Thoughts, Emotions, and Inner Lives of Our Canine Companions (New York: Atria, 2006).
If a 2011 morning show segment: “Dognapping on the Rise: How to Protect Your Dog,” Good Morning America, Aug. 18, 2001.
According to a 2012 study by the ASPCA: E. Weiss et al., “Frequency of Lost Dogs and Cats in the United States and the Methods Used to Locate Them,” Animals 2, no. 2 (2012): 301–15.
CHAPTER 2
39 percent of French dogs: L. Colliard et al., “Risk Factors for Obesity in Dogs in France,” The Journal of Nutrition 136, no. 7 (July 2006): 1951S–54S.
In a 1975 letter to The New York Times: Carol Hillman, Letter to the Editor, New York Times, May 8, 1975.
“Like the Jews of Nazi Germany”: Gini Kopecky, “To Scoop or Not to Scoop,” New York Times Magazine, Aug. 20, 1972.
“Pets should be disallowed by law”: Fran Lebowitz, Social Studies (New York: Pocket, 1982), p. 54.
“both the grass shortage and the poop surplus”: Michael Brandow, New York’s Poop Scoop Law: Dogs, the Dirt, and Due Process (West Lafayette, IN: Purdue University Press, 2008), p. 260.
“were not about to hand over parcels”: Ibid., p. 72.
“Critics imagined horrible scenes of loose predators”: Ibid., p. 261.
In a French study, women were significantly: N. Gueguen et al., “Domestic Dogs as Facilitators in Social Interaction: An Evaluation of Helping and Courtship Behaviors,” Anthrozoos 21 (2008): 339–49.
“The results suggest a human”: A. Fridlund et al., “Approaches to Goldie: A Field Study of Human Approach Responses to Canine Juvenescence,” Anthrozoos 12 (1997); 11(2):95–100.
Researchers have found that children: Coren, The Modern Dog, p. 147.
“made the children more cooperative”: Daniel Goleman, “Children and Their Pets: Unexpected Psychological Benefits,” New York Times, Jan. 11, 1990.
In a 2003 New York Times piece: Caroline Campion, “Straining at the Leash,” New York Times, March 16, 2003.
“Homeless people were moved”: Ibid.
“Admirers of the Xolo concede”: Guy Trebay, “Who Are You Calling Ugly?,” New York Times, Feb. 11, 2011.
“the nose with paws”: McConnell, The Other End of the Leash, p. 67.
“fit inside the sleeves of a Chinese nobleman’s robes”: Josh Dean, Show Dog: The Charmed Life and Trying Times of a Near-Perfect Purebred (New York: HarperCollins, 2012).
“producing unhealthy freaks”: Raymond and Lorna Coppinger, Dogs: A New Understanding of Canine Origin, Behavior, and Evolution (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2001), p. 248.
I’d written a cover story: Benoit Denizet-Lewis, “Can the Bulldog Be Saved?,” New York Times Magazine, Nov. 22, 2011.
“poster child for breeding gone awry”: Lee Shearer, “Standards for Breed Altered,” Augusta Chronicle (ME), Jan. 16, 2009.
“Many would question”: Dr. Nicola Rooney and Dr. David Sargan, “Pedigree Dog Breeding in the U.K.: A Major Welfare Concern,” an independent report commissioned by the RSPCA.
“facilitate the attribution”: James Serpell, Thinking with Animals, “People in Disguise: Anthropomorphism and the Human-Pet Relationship” (New York: Columbia University Press), 2005.
“if bulldogs were the product”: Ibid.
“scarcely capable of any education”: William Youatt, The Dog (Philadelphia: Blanchard and Lea, 1855), p. 150.
“Nobody who is anybody”: Mark Easton, Britain Etc: The Way We Live and How We Got Here (London: Simon & Schuster UK, 2012).
CHAPTER 3
A team of psychologists: S. Gosling et al., “Personalities of Self-Identified ‘Dog People’ and ‘Cat People,’ ” Anthrozoos 23, no. 3 (2010): 213–22.
“In this way”: Alexandra Horowitz, Inside of a Dog: What Dogs See, Smell, and Know (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2010), p. 84.
“I finally got a friend”: Huma Khan, “White House Unveils Excited First Pup,” ABC News, April 14, 2009.
George Washington, who is credited: Roy Rowan and Brooke Janis, First Dogs: American Presidents and Their Best Friends (New York: Algonquin, 2009), pp. 15–16.
When a Fox Terrier wandered: Ibid.
When John Adams moved into the White House: Amelia Glynn, “Celebrating Our Founding Fathers’ Furry Friends,” SFGate.com, June 30, 2010.
“I participate in all your hostility to dogs”: Rowan and Janis, First Dogs, p. 18.
While an AKC online poll revealed: Stacy St. Clair, “Obama Promises Daughters a Puppy in the White House,” Chicago Tribune, Nov. 5, 2008.
“This will fuel the breeding industry”: Nick Greene, “Obamas Criticized for Breaking Promise of Adopting Dog from Shelter,” London, England, The Telegraph, April 14, 2009.
strapping his Irish Setter to the roof: Ana Marie Cox, “Romney’s Cruel Canine Vacation,” Time, June 27, 2007.
Comedian Dennis Miller once joked: “Dennis Miller on Criticism of Obama, PETA vs. the Circus, and Spring Break in Mexico,” FoxNews.com, March 26, 2009.
Some of the biggest names in clothing: “Mango Bans Exotic-Animal Skins Following PETA Meeting,” Peta.org, November 17, 2011.
and fast food: Michael Yaziji and Jonathan Doh, “Case Illustration: PE
TA and KFC,” NGOs and Corporations (Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 2009), pp. 112–14.
“This is not a democratic organization”: I Am an Animal: The Story of Ingrid Newkirk and PETA, HBO, 2007.
In the New Yorker profile: Michael Specter, “The Extremist,” The New Yorker, April 14, 2003.
“romantic and timeless . . . interspecies contract”: Lars Eighner, Travels with Lizbeth: Three Years on the Road and on the Streets (New York: Fawcett Columbine, 1993), p. xii.
who had “the now old-fashioned idea”: John Homans, What’s a Dog For? The Surprising History, Science, Philosophy, and Politics of Man’s Best Friend (New York: Penguin, 2012), p. 48.
Let’s Have a Dog Party!: Ingrid Newkirk (Avon, MA: Adams Media, 2007).
In 2011, PETA euthanized 95 percent: Janice Lloyd, “Peta Says ‘Exploiters’ Raise Euthanasia Issue,” USA Today, March 1, 2012.
“talk to deaf dogs”: McConnell, The Other End of the Leash, p. 40.
“Yet he looked like Max”: Coren, The Modern Dog, p. 42.
dog trainer Brian Kilcommons likes to joke: George Greenfield, The Complete Book of Pet Names: An ASPCA Book (Kansas City: Andrews & McMeel, 1997), p. x.
Pet photographer Walter Chandoha: Ibid.
“a name for a pet is, or at least should be”: Ibid., p. ix.
“Whimsy and humor can generally play”: Ibid.
In a later paper on the subject: Amanda Leonard, “The Plight of ‘Big Black Dogs’ in American Animal Shelters: Color-Based Canine Discrimination,” Kroeber Anthropological Society 99, no. 1 (2011): 168–83.
“Who understands the menu of stink better?”: Henri Michaux quoted in The Difficulty of Being a Dog, Roger Grenier (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2000), p. 12.
Travels with Casey Page 32
