Flawed Dogs: The Year-End Leftovers at the Piddleton Last Chance Dog Pound Book

From the Pulitzer Prize-winning creator of "Bloom County" comes the annual catalog of the fictional "Last Chance" Dog Pound, riotously depicting imperfect dogs that are available for adoption. Full color.

Publishers Weekly

In this outwardly glib paper-over-board catalogue of homeless dogs, Breathed (Edwurd Fudwupper Fibbed Big) comments on people's mistreatment of animals. Trouble is, Breathed's flippant satire and visual hyperbole make an odd fit with his devotion to a worthy cause-the book may be best suited to adult dog lovers. According to the introduction, Piddleton, Vt., "Pop. 327 (People: 243)," is home to activist Heidy Str delberg, who once named a "shivering three-legged streetdog" best in show at Westminster and then founded the Last Chance Dog Pound, to give "the doomed and most desperate... a final try at getting adopted into a world that worships perfection." But that's all in the fine print. To a casual browser, the book is a rogue's gallery of unlovely pets. Barney, a tattooed hound, sits sadly at the grave of his departed owner, "Leo `Nardo' Davinski, 1922-2003, Tattooer to the Angels Now." Pepe, a cross-eyed Chihuahua, thinks he's as handsome as Richard Gere. Other charmers are flatulent or stick their heads up their owner's nostrils. Every spread includes a full-page color portrait, opposite which is a black-and-white mug shot picturing the lonely animal in a gray cement cell. The sentimental concluding image, a glowing Pi ta holding a bandaged dog, laments that "Some live without love.../ That's how they're flawed." Despite this pro-adoption plea, none of the unfortunates finds a home, and the vaunted Piddleton shelter (if indeed it is the one pictured) looks as lifeless as a tomb. All ages. (Oct.) Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.