Dog Diaries 07 - Stubby
DOG DIARIES
#1: G
INGER
A puppy-mill survivor in search of a
furever
family
#2: B
UDDY
The first Seeing Eye guide dog
#3: B
ARRY
Legendary rescue dog of the Great Saint Bernard Hospice
#4: T
OGO
Unsung hero of the 1925 Nome Serum Run
#5: D
ASH
One of two dogs to travel to the New World aboard the
Mayflower
#6: S
WEETIE
George Washington’s “perfect” foxhound
#7: S
TUBBY
One of the greatest dogs in military history
This is a work of fiction. All incidents and dialogue, and all characters with the exception of some well-known historical and public figures, are products of the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Where real-life historical or public figures appear, the situations, incidents, and dialogues concerning those persons are fictional and are not intended to depict actual events or to change the fictional nature of the work. In all other respects, any resemblance to persons living or dead is entirely coincidental.
Text copyright © 2015 by Kate Klimo
Cover art and interior illustrations copyright © 2015 by Tim Jessell
Photographs courtesy of Division of Armed Forces History, National Museum of American History, Smithsonian Institution,
this page
; Harris & Ewing Collection (Library of Congress),
this page
All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Random House Children’s Books, a division of Penguin Random House LLC, New York.
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Klimo, Kate.
Stubby / by Kate Klimo ; illustrated by Tim Jessell. — First edition.
pages cm. — (Dog diaries ; [#7])
Summary: “Stubby the war dog narrates the story of his life, from his birth on the streets of New Haven, Connecticut, through his time spent in Europe with the American Expeditionary Forces, to his eventual hero’s welcome back in the U.S.”
—Provided by publisher.
Includes bibliographical references.
ISBN 978-0-385-39243-3 (trade) — ISBN 978-0-385-39244-0 (lib. bdg.) — ISBN 978-0-385-39245-7 (ebook)
1. Dogs—War use—Juvenile fiction. 2. World War, 1914–1918—France—Juvenile fiction. [1. Dogs—War use—Fiction. 2. Working dogs—Fiction. 3. World War, 1914–1918—France—Fiction. 4. France—History—1914–1940—Fiction.] I. Jessell, Tim, illustrator. II. Jessell, Tim, illustrator. III. Title.
PZ10.3.K686Stu 2015 [Fic]—dc23 2014025497
eBook ISBN 9780385392457
Random House Children’s Books supports the First Amendment and celebrates the right to read.
v4.1
a
The author and editor would like to thank Catharine Fronk-Giordano, Archivist, Stars and Stripes Library and Archives, Washington, D.C., for her assistance in the preparation of this book.
For Paul Klimo, USMC
—K.K.
It’s not the size of the dog in the fight;
it’s the size of the fight in the dog.
—T.J.
Conroy (left), Stubby, and another soldier in Beaumont, France, 1918
S
TREET
D
OG
Make no bones about it: I’m a street dog—born in an alley behind a New Haven diner. A hash slinger with a heart of gold looked the other way while Mom dropped her umpteenth litter in a pile of empty spud sacks. Not too much later, she took off after the butcher’s wagon. From then on, it was every pup for himself. I soon lost track of my littermates.
I did all right on my own. I scrounged for
scraps, stood up to dogs bigger than me, and slept wherever I could. The street was my home. But that didn’t mean I wanted to spend the rest of my life there. Sure, I was a mutt. Mom was an American Staffordshire bull terrier. Pop was who knew what. From her, I got my solid build and crew-cut coat. From my old man, I got everything else, like my drooping jowls and my bug eyes. With my looks, I wasn’t aiming to win any beauty contests. But I was a good dog. If some stand-up person were to give me half a chance, I’d show them just
how
good a dog I could be.
My pals on the street thought I had a screw loose. We used to meet up now and then at the Dumpster behind the deli. We’d shoot the breeze and share tips on the choicest pickings or the meanest shopkeepers. I always asked if they’d seen anyone who looked like they needed a pet.
With a mug like yours, who’d want you?
Stinky cracked.
She was one to talk! She smelled so bad, she could clear an alley faster than a dogcatcher.
People like a dog with a nice tail,
said Scruffy. She looked like a dust ball with fangs, but Scruffy’s tail was a thing of beauty. She never let us forget it.
You’ve got nothing to wag but a stump.
True enough. In the tail department, you might say I’d been shortchanged. My tail was not much bigger than the chewed stub of a cigar. That’s how I came by my name: Stubby.
There’s more to being a good dog than wagging a tail,
I said.
True, but why would you want to be owned?
Scruffy said.
The street is the only place for a self-respecting dog. The pet’s life is for suckers.
Then call me a sucker, because I was fed up
with eating garbage. I’d had it with being chased by shopkeepers and swatted by little old ladies who thought I was after their groceries. (I probably was, but that didn’t mean they had to get nasty about it!) Give me a collar, two squares a day, and forty winks a night with a roof over my head, and I’d sit up and say please, thank you, and the Pledge of Allegiance of these United States. Of course, the chances of this ever happening were slim to none, but a dog could dream, couldn’t he?
Then one day, things began to look up. The United States Army came to town! They arrived by the truckload, more young men than you could shake a stick at, all dressed alike in spanking-clean olive-drab shirts and trousers and boots with a spit shine. They came to have a good time. New Haven’s restaurants spilled over with them. This was good news for street dogs. More people meant
more garbage. But I had bigger fish to fry. I was on the lookout for someone to take me home. I didn’t kid myself. I knew I was too ugly to be a lady’s dog and too tough-looking to be trusted with a toddler. But a nice, clean-cut young man? Now
that
might be the ticket.