22 Quotes by Albert Payson Terhune

Soon or late, every dog's master's memory becomes a graveyard; peopled by wistful little furry ghosts that creep back unbidden, at times, to a semblance of their olden lives.

Oblivious of Harlow, for whom they had all a dog's amusedly tolerant contempt for an inefficient human leader, the quintet swept away on the track.

At first I was for taking him back to you, myself. But my wife doesn't want me to. So, as usual, we've compromised by doing what she wants. She wants him to stay right here. Next time, his crazy luck might land him in dog heaven instead of here at Sunnybank. She says she'd rather have a live chum than a dead champion. Maybe she's right. I find she's apt to be.

The Master talked of buying a whalebone-and-steel-and-snow bull terrier, or a more formidable if more greedy Great Dane. But the Mistress wanted a collie. So they compromised by getting the collie.

Any man with money to make the purchase may become a dog's owner. But no man --spend he ever so much coin and food and tact in the effort-- may become a dog's Master without consent of the dog. Do you get the difference? And he whom a dog once unreservedly accepts as Master is forever that dog's God.

Consciousness of innocence is an excellent anchor, no doubt. But what good is an anchor after the ship has sunk?

Deene had a refreshing ignorance concerning collies; and indeed of nineteen dog-breeds out of twenty. But he had an equally refreshing faith in himself to give wise decisions on any and all canine matters. So, obligingly, he consented to judge collies at Greenwold in addition to his beloved and ultra-tiny Chihuahuas. A similar thing has been done too often to call for comment.

Some proverbs live because they are too true to die. Others endure because they have a smug sound and nobody has bothered to bury them.

All dogs die too soon. Many humans don't die soon enough. A dog is only a dog. And a dog is too gorgeously normal and wholesome to be made ridiculous in death by his owner's sloppy sentimentality.