A Good Dog: The Story of Orson, Who Changed My Life [Hardcover]

Jon Katz (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 26, 2006

“People who love dogs often talk about a ‘lifetime’ dog. I’d heard the phrase a dozen times before I came to recognize its significance. Lifetime dogs are dogs we love in especially powerful, sometimes inexplicable ways.”–Jon Katz

In this gripping and deeply touching book, bestselling author Jon Katz tells the story of his lifetime dog, Orson: a beautiful border collie–intense, smart, crazy, and unforgettable.

From the moment Katz and Orson meet, when the dog springs from his traveling crate at Newark airport and panics the baggage claim area, their relationship is deep, stormy, and loving. At two years old, Katz’s new companion is a great herder of school buses, a scholar of refrigerators, but a dud at herding sheep. Everything Katz attempts– obedience training, herding instruction, a new name, acupuncture, herb and alternative therapies–helps a little but not enough, and not for long. “Like all border collies and many dogs,” Katz writes, “he needed work. I didn’t realize for some time I was the work Orson would find.”
While Katz is trying to help his dog, Orson is helping him, shepherding him toward a new life on a two-hundred-year-old hillside farm in upstate New York. There, aided by good neighbors and a tolerant wife, hip-deep in sheep, chickens, donkeys, and more dogs, the man and his canine companion explore meadows, woods, and even stars, wade through snow, bask by a roaring wood stove, and struggle to keep faith with each other. There, with deep love, each embraces his unfolding destiny.

A Good Dog is a book to savor. Just as Orson was the author’s lifetime dog, his story is a lifetime treasure–poignant, timeless, and powerful.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Barking, lunging and nipping at visitors, terrorizing school buses and crashing through a window screen to pursue a cat in a neighbor's house, the hero of this absorbing, if melodramatic, memoir hardly seems a good dog. But Orson's fangs are firmly set in the heart of dog journalist Katz (The Dogs of Bedlam Farm), who tries everything to soothe his frenzy—acupuncture, chiropractic, "Shen calming herbs from China," sessions with a "shamanic soul retriever"—then moves to a farm where the border collie's native sheep-herding instincts might flourish. Ultimately, the therapeutic benefit accrues to the author, who finds in Orson a "soul mate" who saved him from mid-life crisis in the New Jersey suburbs and brought him to an ecstatic communion with nature. Katz's flagrant anthropomorphizing and his intense emotional involvement ("I was nearly crying with frustration, torn by my growing love for this dog") and heart-to-hearts with Orson ("[w]e can't go on this way," he sobs after a school-bus incident) will resonate with dog lovers, while perhaps puzzling others. When he Katz gets some psychological distance, though, his subtle, evocative descriptions of the beasts around him—including Rose, another border collie whose brilliant herding steals the show—vividly capture the fascinating, enigmatic lives of animals. Photos.(Sept. 26)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist

Katz's previous books have detailed his life with dogs (A Dog Year, 2002, and The Dogs of Bedlam Farm, 2004), the place of dogs in modern society (The New Work of Dogs, 2003), and what dogs have taught him (Katz on Dogs, 2005). When he first laid eyes on highly intelligent but anxious Orson the border collie, he watched as the dog streaked through the Newark airport upon being released from his shipping crate. Under Orson's influence, the author moved from suburban New Jersey to a farm in New York and began a new life of dog training, sheepherding, and writing. Orson was Katz's "lifetime dog," the one he felt a powerful, life-changing connection with--but Orson was a difficult dog. In a lyrical series of vignettes, the author writes of his working border collie, Rose (the personality opposite of Orson); the rooster, Winston; sheep; donkeys; and the impossible Orson, whom Katz thought was destined to work sheep but whose work became the author. This is a lovely memoir. Nancy Bent
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 240 pages
• Publisher: Villard; 1ST edition (September 26, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 140006189X
• ISBN-13: 978-1400061891
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.4 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.6 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 2.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (188 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #891,614 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Bedlam Farm in upstate New York is where I live, write and tend my animals - four dogs, two donkeys, two barn cats. The rambling old farmhouse was built in 1862; it's surrounded by pastures, streams and wooded hillsides, plus four barns and a milkhouse in various stages of disrepair.

I write books- memoirs, novels, short story collections, and beginning in 2011, children's books. I am also a photographer.

In my former life, before I grew preoccupied with sheepherding and moving manure around. I wanted to change my life and write more about the experience of living with and understanding animals.
I write novels and nonfiction books (I've written 20 books), along with columns and articles for Rolling Stone, Wired, the New York Times, and the website HotWired.
Coming to the farm turned out to be a Joseph Campbell style "Hero's Journey." I went off into some dark places, got divorced, struggled to face myself, and found someone to share my life.

My wife Maria Wulf is an artist, who specializes in fiber art. She works in the Studio Barn across the road from the farmhouse. Earlier this year, I thought briefly of selling Bedlam Farm. After getting married, we decided to stay here. My daughter Emma, a sportswriter living in Brooklyn, has written her own book about New York baseball. I publish a blog I love dearly - www.bedlafarm.com. My photos appear there daily. My dogs are Izzy, Lenore, Frieda and Rose, the working dog who helps me run the farm.

My writing life began with a novel - "Sign Off" - an unwittingly prescient story about the jarring changes in work and security.

This year - 2010 - I am returning to fiction. I've written a novel, "Rose In A Storm," about a border collie stranded on a farm in upstate New York during a terrible storm. I wrote this book in conjunction with some animal behaviorists who helped me enter the mind of a dog, and hopefully, be faithful to that. My first children's book "Meet The Dogs Of Bedlam Farm," will be published by Henry Holt next year. I have just finished a short story collection to be published next year by Villard/Random House.
In recent years, photography has become central to me as well as writing. I have been fortunate enough to have several gallery showings of my work, and also sell my photos as notecards through the Redux Gallery in Dorset, Vt.

I am also working on a book about animal grieving. Hopefully, it will be useful.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

217 of 242 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Orson Never Had a Chance, January 1, 2007

By 

C. Ward "dog lover" (OK, United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: A Good Dog: The Story of Orson, Who Changed My Life (Hardcover)

I have been a fan of Jon Katz since I read "A Dog Year." I loved "The Dogs of Bedlam Farm." I expected this book to be a tribute to the dog that brought us those books, a final tribute about a man's love for his dog. I expected the ending to be a sad one, but the actual ending was far beyond sad - it was heart-breaking and unbelievable. I honestly thought this man loved his dog, but I see it differently now.

This is a story about a man who gave up on his dog, perhaps always intended it to be so. Perhaps a story about a man desperate for another book, another heartwrenching tale. Perhaps he tricked us all. After all, as he so eloquently writes, "I am a writer." Maybe he is still suffering the "Midlife Crisis" he wrote about in "Running to the Mountain." I can see in Jon Katz a man who makes rash decisions just because he feels like it, because he wants different circumstances, and this book proves it so.

He writes in a loving, heart-warming manner of his loving, close, committed, special relationship with Orson, the dog he wrote about in "A Dog Year." Then the tables turn and he writes of his horrifying "CHOICE." Might I add SELFISH. In horrifying DETAIL he tells the tale of Orson's fate and he doesn't stop there. He writes about how much better his life is without this dog. This dog whose work was Jon Katz, but Jon Katz did indeed fail him, though he reasons and justifies his actions as best as he knows how as a writer. I feel like he lied to all of us who loved his previous books. He fooled us, but most importantly Orson.

If any of you enjoyed "A Dog Year" or "The Dogs of Bedlam Farm," I advise you not to read this book. Those two books touch the heart, caused me to be a better guardian, one in which I could relate to since I have herding dogs of my own. But how could I ever read those books again after reading this one? I can't and won't. It was all just a big lie.

That poor dog never had a chance in the first place.

313 of 352 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars the poster boy of irresponsible dog ownership, February 1, 2007

By 

pjf "pjf" (MD USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: A Good Dog: The Story of Orson, Who Changed My Life (Hardcover)

So he has money to elaborately renovate his playfarm, to landscape and hire gardeners and helpers, to buy an ATV (the better to "commune" with nature -- like he went to the mountain for solitude but quickly got MTV), and he didn't hesitate writing out a check for a new dog not long after he euthanized his "soulmate", but when it came to spending a few thousand for Orson to get a thorough vetting over, to build him a secure fence around an acre or two, or to even hire a competent dog trainer or a dogwalker to give him the supervised exercise the dog needs (riding on an ATV not much for an energetic border collie), Katz tells us it is immoral to spend that kind of money on a dog when there are people in his hamlet who live in tar paper shacks and hunt for food. Apparently not immoral, though, to spend the same funds on flowerbeds or repointing a fireplace, on ATVs or MTV.

He tells us he can rescue fifty dogs for what it would cost to take Orson to one specialist. But he's already told us in previous volumes he doesn't believe in rescue dogs, in second hand dogs, but in getting "good" dogs from "good" breeders.

This guy was too cheap and lazy to take his dog to even one canine veterinary specialist when the dog's behavior worsened, or to build him a decent fence with a beware of dog sign, to hire even one good dog trainer. All of those things -- vet care, training, fencing -- are basic responsibilities that come with owning a dog. But he didn't leash his dog when necessary (something he has a history of never doing), never put up proper fencing (Orson regularly got out of his NJ fence at home and even the puppy Clem was nearly mowed down by a semi at the farm), never supervised Orson properly around visitors. And then he was astounded when there were incidents. Orson changed his life, apparently, but he couldn't be bothered to make the necessary allowances for basic dog ownership.

This has been his pattern through multiple years and books. When his two labs got sick, when he decided Homer his second border collie didn't love him enough, when Orson gave him trouble, he got rid of them or they got the quick needle. Nor is it limited to dogs. Winston gets plenty of page time in this book. Yet his first response when the rooster becomes ill is to go for his gun. With a neighbor's care it survived to roam the farm again. Surprise, sometimes a pet's care actually takes time, or costs money. Sometimes you have to accommodate a less than perfect animal. But not Katz.

Responsible pet owners don't justify euthanizing their pets because in the past poor people have shot their dogs when they get ill -- as Katz rationalizes for not getting Orson a thorough vetting. Or because there are poor people living in tar paper shacks, so how can he spend money on a dog. That's a mind boggling excuse from someone who used, exploited and down right set this dog up to be the "bad dog of Bedlam" so he could write lucrative books about the relationship, and who has spent money freely on just about everything else on his playfarm.

When you take in a pet, you commit to reasonable expenses -- a good fence. A leash. When the dog gets sick or his behavior inexplicably changes (or not so inexplicably given his mishandling and virtual torture of Orson) you get it vet care. And yes, sometimes it does require xrays, or a specialist. People with a lot less means than Katz do it routinely. And their pets are not even their cash cows.

What is amazing is that this guy had the means, partially funded by Orson himself, and yet he did not make one single responsible effort -- even while he crows about how he loves this dog. Not even to give it to a rescue organization - which wouldn't have cost him a penny. I suppose he didn't want them to succeed where he so publicly failed.

He does try "shamans" and animal communicators. Perhaps he thought it would make interesting copy. How does he justify that with the poor people in the tarpaper shacks, and without trying conventional medicine? But without changing his own behavior, which without a doubt contributed to this dog's problems, you couldn't expect much. Then, when the dog doesn't magically turn around, he dumps it like all the others.

The story of another bad dog owner. Except he then crows about his lost soulmate, his sorrow.

The only sad thing is that if this dog had been taken in by any reasonably responsible person or rescue organization, someone who'd provide an adequate fence and give him exercise, vet care and not taunted him continually with situations that he knew were triggers for the dog -- letting workman and delivery people continually come through the front fence with Orson loose when he knew Orson had a problem about that, this dog would probably have had a happy, healthy life.

You get the impression he got this dog, like the farm, as a mid life crisis egoboo. The badder the dog was, the more it fit his constructed image of them as the two misfits, "soulmates", something he craved after getting tired of his "elderly sedentary labs" as he described his former two dogs. He screams at the Orson; he abuses him, he doesn't provide Orson with a secure fence and he gets hit by a car, and it all makes salable copy. Then he and his wild dog go to the farm and it makes better copy. Then having encouraged or allowed Orson to get this out of control, he continues to set him up in adversarial situations rather taking the precautions any sane person would make. He doesn't fence the dog securely from visitors, because it spoils his view of it as the "bad dog of Bedlam" who needed to be free. Then when the dog predictably fails in this chaotic environment, he makes a swift decision to kill him.

Anyone who's ever owned a sharp shepherd could tell Orson could have been managed with a little effort. He deserved that much. But it's obvious this guy not only knows very little about dogs, but cares very little about anything but himself. (Even as he fires up the throttle on his ATV in the middle of the night, and gloats that there's no nearby neighbors to be disturbed, he seems totally oblivious that he just left his sleeping wife) The efforts Katz needed to keep his dog safe were possible. They were within his means. But they were efforts he couldn't be bothered with.

He talks about how with the money he would save on not treating Orson, he could save fifty dogs. But there's no mention of even a portion of the proceeds of this self serving book going to border collie rescue, to save even one dog. Or to the "poor people in the tarpaper shacks". Instead he quickly writes a check for a replacement dog to one of his "good breeders".

Orson may have changed his life but he didn't hesitate to ruin the dog's life, to set him up in situations that he knew made him unsafe, to let him get hurt, to not get him care, to kill him for falling into the trap Katz set, and then pander to readers for sympathy. All while raking in royalies.

This book reminds me of those people who let their dog roam loose in the streets, when wail crocodile tears when it gets hit by a car, who dump a dog at a shelter so riddled with fleas or mange that its skin is bare and bleeding, but drop in two weeks later to ask if it got adopted, and say how much they loved it. There are plenty of ignorant, lazy, selfish pet owners in the world, too irresponsible to keep animals. Katz is their poster boy.

169 of 189 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Good Dog Meets Terrible End, October 28, 2006

By 

Doxie Lady (New York) - See all my reviews

This review is from: A Good Dog: The Story of Orson, Who Changed My Life (Hardcover)

I feel exactly the same way as the previous reviewer. My husband and I don't have border collies; we have dachshunds. Dachshunds can also be very protective of their owners and territory and also have a very strong prey drive. We have a dachshund that bit one of my neighbors while we had the dog out for a walk. Their cat was out and my dog went after the cat and bit the neighbor instead (he was in such an overexcited state he literally did not know what he was doing). Note: my dog was on leash when this incident occurred. He is never off leash outside our property. Luckily this lady was an animal lover and she was absolutely gracious about it.

The incident taught me a very hard lesson...but a necessary one. I had to be absolutely vigilant about my supervision of this dog. How I introduce him. Where I walk him. I changed the leash from a regular 6ft leash to a 4ft slip lead (NOT a choke chain). I have also applied some local trainers' ideas about noticing the early signs of excitement in my dog and learning how to channel the dog's attention so that he never gets to the excited state. It has been over 2 years since the incident and we have had no other incidents. But, as I said, my husband and I are vigilant about our supervision. I do not take lightly the fact that my dog bit someone. I think I lost sleep for a month when it happened. But, that memory now serves as a constant reminder to me to maintain my awareness with my dog and be constant in my supervision - which really all dog owners should do with all dogs.

I have all of the Orson books and I, too, was enjoying reading them. I thought, here is someone who understands what I am going through in dealing with an anxious dog. When I went to get "A Good Dog", I was so excited because I had enjoyed the other two books. The writing was so lovely and the author seemed to have such a deep love for his dogs. I was a couple of chapters into the book and I could sense where it was heading. I skipped ahead to the last chapters and was absolutely devastated.

For this man to euthanize his dog when he himself says that he owed Orson so much for saving him in so many ways is (in my opinion) unpardonable. To think that Orson could not be given to another person to try to rehabilitate is absolutely arrogant. I have to even sympathize with another reviewer that wrote in and asked why wasn't Cesar Milan contacted? At least Cesar Milan always works to rehabilitate the dog - not put the dog down. But it didn't have to be Cesar Milan...many other trainers could have at least tried to work with this dog.

My suspicion is that the arrogance of the author extended too far. How would it look to the public if he contacted another dog trainer? Didn't he write a book about common sense dog training? (And to think I almost bought that book...) I am sure that it would be just too humbling for him to try to consult another trainer on the issue - especially another well publicized trainer. Wouldn't that say that he didn't know what he was doing with his dogs?

And did the author try to communicate with his "public" by putting a sign up that says "don't pet the dog when he is behind the fence"? Even to friends. I know that this can be difficult. But, with my dog, I tell my friends who come over...do not rush up to the crate or gate and try to pet the dogs. Let me introduce you first. It is difficult for me to do that, but worth it to me. This saves my dogs and any unfortunate incident with friends and neighbors.

In the end, I just wish the best decision had been made for the dog. This dog that the author owed so much...that he "loved" so much. I think I had the hardest time with the scene at the end of the book when the author talks about the Dog Star and about how Orson knew it was time to go and about how Orson was at peace. I wish I could have taken comfort from this scene, but unfortunately it just left me with the feeling that the author was somehow trying to absolve himself from this terrible decision that he made.

(Note: I do understand that there are some dogs that are truly a danger to society. I also understand that it is necessary sometimes with truly dangerous dogs to put them down. I understand that Orson was a much bigger dog than my 16 pound doxie and could potentially cause much more harm than my dog ever could. But, I think that we sometimes label dogs too quickly as "dangerous"... I do NOT believe from what I read that Orson was truly dangerous. I do not think enough was done for him. I believe that if an offer had been put out to some trusted trainers that someone would have taken him. I wish for Orson's sake that this had occurred.)