June 6th 1806

"[T]he red has the appearance of being laid over a ground of yellow": Western Tanager by Phae on Flickr.

In what is now Lewis County, Idaho:

This morning Frazier returned having been in quest of some roots and bread which had left at the lodg of the Twisted hair when on his way to the fishery on Lewis's river. the Twisted hair came with him but I was unable to converse with him for the want of an interpreter, Drewyer being absent with Capt. C. This Cheif left me in the evening and returned to his village. Capt C. Visited the Broken Arm today agreeably to his promise; he took with him Drewyer and several others. they were received in a friendly manner. The Broken Arm informed Capt C. that the nation would not pass the mountain untill the latter end of the summer, and that with rispect to the young men whom we had requested should accompany us to the falls of the Missouri, were not yet scelected for that purpose nor could they be so untill there was a meeting of the nation in counsil. that this would happen in the course of ten or twelve days as the whole of the lodges were about to remove to the head of the Commeâp Creek in the plain near Lewis's river, that when they had assembled themselves they would hold a council and scelect the young men. that if we set out previously to that period the men would follow us. we therefore do not calculate on any assistance from them as guides, but depend more upon engageing some of the Ootlashshoots in the neighborhood of Travellers rest C. for that purpose. The broken arm gave Capt. C. a few dryed Quawmas roots as a great present, but in our estimation those of cows are much better, I am confident they are much more healthy. The men who were with Capt. C. obtained a good store of roots and bread in exchange for a number of little notions, using the Yanke phrase, with which their own enginuity had principally furnished them. on examination we find that our whole party have an ample store of bread and roots for our voyage, a circumstance not unpleasing. They retuned at 5 P. M. shortly after which we were visited by Hohâstillpilp the two young Cheifs who gave us the horses in behalf of the nation some time since and several others, who remained all night. The Kooskooske is about 150 Yds. wide at this place and discharges a vast body of water; notwithstanding it high state the water remains nearly transparent, and it's temperature appeas to be quite as cold as that of our best springs.

Western Tanager by The.Rain.Man on Flickr.

we meet with a beautifull little bird in this neighbourhood about the size and somewhat the shape of the large sparrow. it is reather longer in proportion to it's bulk than the sparrow. it measures 7 inches from the extremity of the beek to that of the tail, the latter occupying 2½ inches. the beak is reather more than half an inch in length, and is formed much like the virginia nitingale; it is thick and large for a bird of it's size; wide at the base, both chaps convex, and pointed, the uper exceeds the under chap a little is somewhat curved and of a brown colour; the lower chap of a greenish yellow. the eye full reather large and of a black colour both puple and iris. the plumage is remarkably delicate; that of the neck and head is of a fine orrange yellow and red, the latter predominates on the top of the head and arround the base of the beak from whence it graduly deminishes & towards the lower part of the neck, the orrange yellow prevails most; the red has the appearance of being laid over a ground of yellow. the breast, the sides, rump and some long feathers which lie between the legs and extend underneath the tail are of a fine orrange yellow. the tail, back and wings are black, ecept a small stripe of yellow on the outer part of the middle joint of the wing, ¼ of an inch wide and an inch in length. the tail is composed of twelve feathers of which those in the center are reather shortest, and the plumage of all the feathers of the tail is longest on that side of the quill next the center of the tail. the legs and feet are black, nails long and sharp; it has four toes on each foot, of which three are forward and one behind; that behind is as long as the two outer of the three toes in front.

Observed equal altitudes of the sun with Sextant.

The first description for science of my heart bird, the Western Tanager, written by Captain Meriwether Lewis. You can read the journals of his expedition here.

H/T: Idaho Birding Blog.

Sled dogs

It's one of the best collections of sled dog photos ever, all posted at The Big Picture. Most are from Europe, including the gem below. Look! Bijou is herding!



Meanwhile, the Iditarod is just around the corner. Drug tests this year — for the mushers:

The Iditarod plans to test mushers for drugs and alcohol in March, a change many mushers have no problem with -- but one that three-time champion Lance Mackey scoffs at.

"I think it's a little bit ridiculous," Mackey said Wednesday night from his home near Fairbanks after a training run. "It is a dog race, not a human race. It (using a drug) doesn't affect the outcome of the race."

Mackey, a throat cancer survivor who has a medical marijuana card, admits to using marijuana on the trail and thinks his success has made some of his competitors jealous.

"It isn't the reason I've won three years in a row," said Mackey, though he concedes marijuana helps him stay awake and focused during the 1,100-mile race that takes winners nearly 10 days to complete. [ADN]

As a supporter of California's "legalize it, regulate it and tax it" initiative, I'm rooting for Lance. [Full disclosure: your blogger never smoked, but did inhale. Damn dorm-room hippies.]

I'll watch the Iditarod as always, though each year it feels more like a countdown to the inevitable dog deaths. Six dogs died last year. And yes, they "love to run"; but breeding dogs with off-the-charts drive and then pushing them not merely beyond their capacity but to their deaths — holy crap, Iditarod people, this is not what the serum run to Nome was all about. Wake up, smell the medical marijuana, and create an exciting race that doesn't kill dogs every frikkin' year.

Related:
Brutal
Iditarod links, and a moment of silence, dammit

Calvin & Hobbes & Bill

On the fridge all these many years. The U.S. Postal Service will release a Calvin & Hobbes stamp in July; Mr. Watterson grants an interview: more here. Click for [very] big.

Link liberation: scary wolf stories

Ernest Thompson Seton: Wolf Study. Pen and ink with water color (1896).

I first read Seton's Lobo, the King of Currumpaw when I was eight or nine [thanks, Uncle Rudy, for the gift of Wild Animals I Have Known], and I can still recite parts of that story from memory.

A lion shorn of his strength, an eagle robbed of his freedom, or a dove bereft of his mate, all die, it is said, of a broken heart; and who will aver that this grim bandit could bear the three-fold brunt, heart-whole? This only I know, that when the morning dawned, he was lying there still in his position of calm repose, but his spirit was gone—the old king-wolf was dead.

I took the chain from his neck, a cowboy helped me to carry him to the shed where lay the remains of Blanca, and as we laid him beside her, the cattle-man exclaimed: "There, you would come to her, now you are together again."

That account of a great wolf's life and death just killed me. A couple years ago PBS ran a show about Lobo and Seton, called The Wolf that Changed America. [You can watch video selections here.] The website has a collection of related images, and when I saw the photo Seton took of Lobo at the end, the real Lobo, with each leg in a horrible trap, I actually broke down and cried.

Yes, I'm a child of the suburbs. [The very first subdivision to spring up in the midst of Pleasantville's fields and orange groves, but still.]

Like grizzlies, wolves fascinate and frighten me all at once.

These two stories are both hair-raising, and true, and they don't have happy endings.

Gros Ventre wolves kill 3 dogs [this article broke my heart]

Wolf kills hunting hound


Related:
Watch out, wolves of Idaho – the Becker dogs are ready to rumble [Edited to add: check out the follow-up post's beautiful photos.]
Dr. L. David Mech's International Wolf Center.
Cat Urbigkit's Wolf Watch.
Off Endangered List, but What Animal Is It Now?

Back in the day: three kids, a dog and an outhouse

Keeping it real in Big Bear Lake, California. Freckles is bored.

We’ll finish the temple of freedom, and make it capacious within

The song Lincoln and Liberty was recorded by American folk singer and activist Ronnie Gilbert in 1991 for the TV special and compilation album Songs of the Civil War.

"Songs are dangerous, songs are subversive and can change your life." [Ronnie Gilbert, on the effects of hearing Paul Robeson sing when she was 10.]

Lincoln and Liberty was written by New Hampshire's famous Hutchinson Family Singers, "ardent abolitionists," for the 1860 presidential election. Says Gilbert, "That song helped Lincoln win the presidency."

Hurrah for the choice of the nation!
Our chieftain so brave and so true
We'll go for the great reformation
For Lincoln and Liberty too

We'll go for the son of Kentucky
The hero of Hoosierdom through
The pride of the Suckers so lucky
For Lincoln and Liberty too

Then up with the banner so glorious
The star-spangled red white and blue
We'll fight till our banner's victorious
For Lincoln and Liberty too

Come all you true friends of the nation
Attend to humanity's call
To aid in the slave's liberation
And roll on the liberty ball

We’ll finish the temple of freedom
And make it capacious within
That all who seek shelter may find it
Whatever the hue of their skin

Success to the old-fashioned doctrine
That men are created all free
And down with the power of the despot
Wherever his stronghold may be!

Old school: The Nicholas Brothers [and Fats]

Not that it needs anyone's validation, but someone by the name of Fred Astaire said this was the greatest dance number ever filmed. Ladies and gentlemen, the Nicholas Brothers, in a clip from Stormy Weather:



And here they are as kids:



Don't even get me started on the contributions of black American artists and performers to this nation and the world. A great, immeasurable legacy, and before I get all maudlin, here's Fats doing his That Ain't Right with Ada Brown. [And yes, the waiter is Bill "Bojangles" Robinson.] Keep your foot from tapping, I dare you:

California's future foretold

Tenochtitlan, back in the day. Click for bigger.

Crónica de una muerte anunciada, perhaps? From Daniel Hernandez's most excellent blog, Intersections:

And this is where life in the city starts getting a just a bit more stressful. La Prensa is reporting that the Mexico City government will be cutting off the main flow of water to the capital "100%" during the end of Semana Santa, April 9 through 12. We can't repeat it enough: the water supply right now is at critically low levels. El Universal confirms that the Cutzamala valve will be entirely shut off on Thursday, and that the city won't feel the effects until probably Friday, the 10th.

So that's 36 hours without water flowing from the largest supply plant for a city of 20 million people, which, in high cosmic irony, used to look like the image above only about 500 years ago.

Back home in California, I suspect it may be just a matter of time. Read the rest of Daniel's blog post here.

Death before doglessness!

Or so I hope. I'm from a long line of people who have shared their homes with all kinds of mutts and purebreds and have loved them from the back of the soul, and take it from us, a dogless life is scarcely worth living. Since elementary school I've been without a dog of my own for just one discombobulating month.

I spent most of the day inside with the new pup, scanning old family photos under his watchful eye. The flip side of the photo below lists my mother's name [she's the tall girl] and the dog's. [He was Pride, my great-aunt's collie. That's Pridey in the small photo above.] The kid sitting in the front apparently didn't merit recognition:


Fallen timber [firewood!] is a hallmark of our family snapshots. I could do a comprehensive photographic history of several generations of us at the cabin and never use a photo that didn't have somebody standing on, sitting on, or leaning against a fallen tree. With a dog.

My wonderful great-aunt is in the photo below, on the right. The dog was another one of hers. He's in a ton of photos.


All this is by way of introducing a newspaper article by Helen Elliott on the subject of doglessness. As she says, "A clean house and doing as you please are, frankly, overrated." Hat tip to Nag on the Lake, who sums up my feelings as well as anything: "I pity the dogless."

Edited to add:

Patrick was there. O.M.G. Visit Terrierman for the deets. I hope his feet thaw out OK.


Also: I forgot to post sources for the photos in the previous post. The wonderful thumbs-up shot is from Danielle Belton's The Black Snob. More from the Snob [I love this photo so much I could just diiieeeee]:


All the other photos in the previous post [and the small photo above] were liberated from the most excellent Spanish news site El País. Check out their photos of Inauguration Day here.

Genuine Man-eating Siberian Bloodhounds

Eliza crossing the Ohio River, pursued by Genuine you-know-whats.

Fellow James Thurber-addict Carol [FrogDogz] has pointed out that for Thurber's generation — not to mention his parents' generation — the monster dog that tore people to shreds, that took hold with its fearsome jaws and never let go, was the bloodhound. Really: the friendly, slobbery bloodhound.

Remember when a girl could be ruined by a book? Back in the 1800s a dog could be ruined by the theater. The bloodhound's reputation tanked after the publication of Uncle Tom's Cabin: a book I have never actually read skimmed today that contains a scene, or so I thought, where a runaway slave, her child in her arms, tries to cross the frozen Ohio River with a pack of vicious bloodhounds in hot pursuit. I know about this scene because my parents had in their library an amazing picture book of American history, with an image of a theater poster for Jay Rial's Ideal Uncle Tom's Cabin. Actually, the poster reads Jay Rial's Genuine Trained Bloodhounds. And in smaller letters, below the illustration: With Jay Rial's Ideal Uncle Tom's Cabin. The artist was Matt Morgan. From Bandwagon:

Matt Morgan, a leading lithographic artist of the period, joined the firm [Strobridge, "synonymous with circus posters"] in 1878, after spending five years with Leslie's Weekly as a cartoonist. Morgan's arrival brought the creation of the first Strobridge multiple-sheet poster, in the form of a 16 sheet [outdoor poster]. The subject was "Eliza Crossing the Ice."

I can find no reproduction of this poster online, and will have to scan it the next time I'm downtown. The book's reproduction of the poster is in black and white. The dogs are big, entirely lifelike and and vividly believable, with close-cropped ears and the slick coats of a pit bull or an American bulldog. They look absolutely ferocious, even if you are not an impressionable eight year old. The caption: Eliza's race across the Ohio River, shown in an Uncle Tom's Cabin theater poster, was often duplicated in real life. One Negro woman who was caught on the Ohio side cut her baby's throat as they were carried back to slavery. [Author Harriet Beecher Stowe exaggerates the separation of slave children from their families, complained a critic: Louisiana law clearly states that “Every person is expressly prohibited from selling separately from their mothers the children who shall not have attained the full age of ten years."]

In the book, as it turns out, there are no dogs chasing Eliza across the frozen river. Stowe never mentions bloodhounds in Uncle Tom's Cabin [thank you, Project Gutenberg and Control+F], and she refers to Simon Legree's slave-chasing animals as bull-dogs, a familiar type. But theater impresarios of the 1800s guessed correctly that nothing would sell tickets like man-eating bloodhounds, with the possible exception of Genuine Man-eating Siberian Bloodhounds, so the dogs became central to stage productions of Uncle Tom's Cabin, and the breed became famous for viciousness and unpredictable savagery.

All images in this post are from the web site Uncle Tom's Cabin & American Culture: A Multi-Media Archive.

Absolutely, positively.

Another scene not found in the book. Are those Mexican bandits up on the cliff? Because that would be awesome.

One is left speechless.

From the NY Times, May 29, 1883:



You had to be there:

[File under Disbelief: Willing Suspension of.]

Timesink alert: NYPL Digital Gallery

OMG, this totally is Bounce. Click on images for links to the NYPL and bigger views.

The Digital Gallery of the New York Public Library

provides free and open access to over 640,000 images digitized from the The New York Public Library's vast collections, including illuminated manuscripts, historical maps, vintage posters, rare prints, photographs and more.

With all that digital goodness available, where to begin? I started with - wait for it - dogs, and a search for dog images will turn up bazillions. Here are a couple old commercial posters:





A trio of Staffies:



Look at the Bedlington! Look at the gorgeous GSD! Look at the corgi...! Clearly they had not yet been perfected by the fancy.







Seriously, this is one helluva timesink. You've been warned.

[H/T: Design*Sponge.]

Tonantzín, called Guadalupe

Shrine in Tamaulipas, Mexico, by Ilhuicamina on Flickr.

This year marks the 477th anniversary of the appearances of Nuestra Dulce Señora Santa María de Guadalupe del Tepeyac, Reina de México y Emperatriz de las Américas. December 12, her feast day, is also the day I was born. Actual birthday conversation from many years ago:

Student: "Hey, today's my mom's birthday, too."

Teacher: "And it's one of the most important religious holidays in Latin America."

Student: "Wow, I didn't know they even knew my mom!"


No trip north for me this year. I'm staying close to home and keeping a special eye on my oldest dog. Rain and snow expected this weekend and the week to come, yay.

Two more photos of La Morenita:

Catedral de Autlan de Navarro, Jalisco, Mexico. Photograph by M@beLita, on Flickr.

Photographer Infinitas Gracias writes: "I took this picture in Patzcuaro, Mexico a few years ago. The great Virgin of Guadalupe is watching this dozy dog like she watches all her children." Another Flickr photo.

Stubby poses with his medals

Good little man, Stubby. [Click for bigger.]

The bulldog [as he would have been called back then] Stubby has been celebrated in Stubby: Terrier Hero of Georgetown by the most excellent Terrierman, and here, as part of Animal Farm Foundation's A Popular History of the Pit Bull in America.

This photo of Sergeant Stubby is from the Nationaal Archief in The Hague, via Flickr.

LIFE photo archive available on Google Image Search

From the LIFE photo archive: "Dog breeder Arthur N. Allen, whose border collie, Roy, won the North American Dog Society Championship 3 times in a row; here with potential future winner." 1961 photo by Robert W. Kelley. [They left a word out. It should be the North American — something, I'll think of it in a minute — Dog Society Championship... Ship? Ship Dog...? No... ]

Dude. The LIFE Magazine photo archive, all 10 million images, is going to be available on Google Image Search. From the Google Blog [with H/T to Lisa Gold, among others who've mentioned this]:

We're excited to announce the availability of never-before-seen images from the LIFE photo archive. This effort to bring offline images online was inspired by our mission to organize all the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful. This collection of newly-digitized images includes photos and etchings produced and owned by LIFE dating all the way back to the 1750s.

Only a very small percentage of these images have ever been published. The rest have been sitting in dusty archives in the form of negatives, slides, glass plates, etchings, and prints. We're digitizing them so that everyone can easily experience these fascinating moments in time. Today about 20 percent of the collection is online; during the next few months, we will be adding the entire LIFE archive — about 10 million photos.

That 20% should keep you busy enough for now.

The Red Vote

Author Sherman Alexie explains to Stephen Colbert why 90% of American Indians Native Americans our nation's indigenous peoples are voting for Obama.



[H/T: The Unapologetic Mexican.]

Bear in mind

C. Hart Merriam's hand-colored map shows the distribution of the seven subspecies of the California Grizzly he identified and described.

Grizzly bear kills handler — on Earth Day! Paramedics arrive — from Big Bear City! Front-page article in — well, you get the idea. As they say, the Wheel of Karma has many spokes. From the L.A. Times:

Friends and colleagues of an animal trainer killed by a performing bear called it a "freak accident" Wednesday and said the 700-pound grizzly should not be euthanized. The animal, they said, did not intend to kill the bear expert.

"The same thing he was doing I have done a hundred times. We wrestle the bears in a loving way," said Joel Almquist, an animal trainer who has worked extensively with Rocky, the 5-year-old grizzly who killed 39-year-old Stephan Miller on Tuesday with a single bite to the neck.

"This bear has never shown aggression," Almquist said. "It was a flash bite, a real quick . . . bam. Unfortunately, we are built like tissue paper compared to them."

Diana Guerrero is familiar with the people who run Predators in Action, and has much more on this tragedy over at her Ark Animals blog. Lots of photos of the Rocky the grizzly and handler Randy Miller here.

"Perhaps few animals have suffered more from persistent and relentless warfare waged by man than this formidable Bear."

At one time there were more grizzlies in California than anywhere else in the continental U.S. Our native monarch is extinct now: the last wild grizzly in California was killed in 1922.

The following images and quotes were taken from the Bancroft Library's great Bear in Mind exhibit on the California Grizzly. There's a terrific book available as well. Read it and weep.

"[In 1844 we] crossed over to what is now called [Big] Bear Lake - before arriving at the lake capturing a village, the people of which had all left except two old women & some children.

On evening of the 2nd day arrived at the lake - the whole lake & swamp seem’d to be alive with bear; the 22 young Californians went out in pairs, and each pair lassoed one bear and brought the result to the camp, so that had at one & same time 11 bear - this prompted me to give the lake the name it now bears ...

On the return by way of Bear Lake, the same 22 men that went with me to that lake repeated the feat of bringing eleven bears to camp - making 22 killed on the trip." Don Benito [Benjamin Davis] Wilson, Observations on Early Days in California: manuscript, 1877.

James Walker: "Roping the Bear at Santa Margarita Rancho."

" ...High up on the waters of the San Joaquin, in California, many of these animals have been killed by the miners now overrunning all the country west of the Sierra Nevada. John James Audubon, Rev. John Bachman, The Quadrupeds of North America, 1851-54.

"S. E. Hollister, the Great American Hunter & Trapper: His Famous Encounter with the Enormous She Bear While Capturing Her Cubs in the Sierra Nevada Mountains Between the American and Mocosume Rivers, California, in March 1853."

"I shot that year, as before stated, 45 grizzlies, not counting those that got away in the brush, most of them no doubt fatally wounded, but one of my rules was never to go into a thicket if I knew it contained a bear.

I killed some very large ones and one in particular whose skin I sold to one of the trading vessels. It was much larger than any bullock’s hide they took on board... When a she bear with cubs is found, it is best to shoot the old one first and the young ones can be shot at leisure, as they will not leave the mother...

At this time there was no sale for bear skins, so that we never took the trouble to skin them...

I think I must have killed, on this coast, at different times, upwards of 200 grizzlies." George Nidever, manuscript: 1878.

********

The grizzly-as-symbol is all that's left. Check out these crate labels from eBay:

I want this one. Bid here. No, I don't get a commission.

There are still big ranches in Orange County, believe it or not. Make a bid on this label.

My hometown used to look just like that. Make a bid.

i have this weird thing about bears- one part of me is seriously obsessed with them and thinks they’re the coolest thing since sliced bread and then the other part is deathly afraid of them. Grace Bonney, Design Sponge.

[Is Grace Bonney me, only with cooler stuff?]

That's my sis on the left, reading at the cabin. No grizzlies lurking outside, but there are black bears [Ursus americanus] galore in the San Bernardinos. Our Big Bear Lake electrician back in the day kept a pack of Plott hounds to scare off problem bears for the State Fish and Game people. After an adult black bear strolled through the Cedar Lake dining hall during a seniors get-together, his Plott pack chased the bear all night, from Cedar Lake down Clark's Grade to Seven Oaks. One heck of a run, I'm telling you.

I'm going to buy these most excellent posters for the cabin. The artist is Scott Hansen of San Francisco:



And finally, check out the five California Grizzly Recovery Areas [based on preliminary assessment by the California Grizzly Bear Reintroduction Team]. I totally support this concept and the great team involved — every last one of them.

Estate Auction: dog related fine and decorative arts

Bonhams & Butterfields Sunset Estate Auction, Los Angeles, March 30, 2008. Click for big.

The collecting bug: one minute you're happy with two or three porcelain sheepdogs and a "Ban Stupid People, Not Dogs" mousepad, and the next thing you know, you're on eBay in a bidding war for a set of kissing-pugs salt and pepper shakers. Or at Christie's bidding on a Hockney etching of a dachshund. Or both.

This Sunday, one of the world's largest collections of dog-related art and memorabilia will be sold at auction in Los Angeles. Bonhams & Butterfields is in charge, and you can visit their site to see some of the wonderful old tintypes and photographs of dogs from the Jennifer Berry collection. Lots of working collies and pit bull types, and many other breeds -- even sheep!

Over the past five decades, Los Angeles collector and animal lover Jennifer Berry has amassed what is surely one of the largest collections of dog-related memorabilia in the world. Housed in her prestigious Brentwood Hills, California home, it has remained virtually unknown but to close family and a handful of collectors[...]

Within the highlights is photography, embodied by highly sought after daguerreotypes, ambrotypes and tintypes. Almost all of images feature dogs sitting for a portrait. Considered highly desirable to both photography collectors as well as dog art lovers, these seminal images document not only the practice of early photographic portraiture, but accurately depict the state of various breeds in the 19th century. [Source]

Old books, too. From the Bonhams & Butterfields site:

Sale 15882 - Sunset Estate Auction
30 Mar 2008
7601 Sunset Blvd., Los Angeles

The March Sunset Auction features the Jennifer Berry Collection of Dog related fine and decorative arts[...]

Viewing in our Los Angeles Gallery:
Friday, March 28th 10:00 AM - 5:00 PM
Saturday, March 29th 10:00 AM - 5:00 PM
Sunday, March 30th 10:00 AM - 12:00 PM

Representatives from spcaLA will be on hand during the preview to provide information on their programs and services for our clients.

Meanwhile, back on the Bay:

"Girl w PIT BULL DOG Staffordshire Terrier Original CDV card photo dated 1866 England."

I want 'em all.

Gratuitous leftovers [yes, I'll be bidding]

Chicago Kennel Club, 1902.

They didn't get chosen for the Nitwit post, but here are a few more pieces of visual material [as the historians call it] that happen to be on eBay at the moment. I should get a commission. Kidding -- links to sellers are under each photo:

Basket o' pups. Last week this seller sold the cute photo below.

Note flying saucer in background.

Sit up, boy.

And another shot of the railroad surveyors with their dog:

The men of Deadwood.

I see an "eBay photo of the week" in this blog's future, yikes. This will have to be all for now. Two more wonderful photos from the same seller [and I think it's the same dog]:

Best buds.

"I am on a sandy beach..."

From the comments section, below:

Just want to note that portrait of the baby and the pittie on the ground can also be seen in "The Best Dog in the World" by Donna Long. All types of breeds, but some nice pit bull pictures, too, and the author notes how pit bulls were very popular family dogs.

Thanks for the heads-up! I've ordered a copy.