The Plague Dogs: A Novel

By Richard Adams

This modern-day classic is an unforgettable tale of fantasy and adventure, a powerful exploration of the limits of human cruelty and kindness. A “gripping ... compelling tale of emotional force and high suspense” (The Wall Street Journal).

Rowf, a shaggy black mongrel, and Snitter, a black-and-white fox terrier, are among dozens of animals being cruelly held in a testing facility in North West England. When one of the handlers fails to close Rowf’s cage properly, the two dogs make a daring escape into the English countryside, where they befriend a red fox who helps them survive in the wild.

But as rumors circulate that the dogs may have been the test subjects for biological weapons and could be carrying a terrible plague, they soon find themselves targets of a great dog hunt. Local farmers, politicians, scientists, and even the military join in the search to track them down.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
• Release date: Nov 3, 2010
• ISBN: 9780307775771

Richard Adams

Richard Adams (1920–2016) was educated at Bradfield College and Worcester College, Oxford. He served in the Second World War and in 1948 joined the civil service. In the mid-1960s he completed his first novel, Watership Down, for which he struggled for several years to find a publisher. It was eventually awarded both the Carnegie Medal and the Guardian Award for children’s fiction for 1972. He would go on to publish several more books, including Shardik, Tales from Watership Down, Maia, The Plague Dogs, and The Girl in a Swing.

Reviews for The Plague Dogs

[liscarey · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Rowf, a big, shaggy, black mongrel dog, and Snitter, a black and white fox terrier, are experimental animals at the Animal Research Station--Scientific & Experimental (A.R.S.E.) Rowf was born there, but Snitter once had a loving master and a happy home, until his master was struck by a lorry in an accident that Snitter blames himself for. The two dogs, living in adjoining pens, have become friends, and share their experiences: Rowf is daily nearly drowned in a tank of water, while Snitter has had brain surgery that breaks down the barrier between conscious and unconscious minds, and consequently has mad waking dreams. When carelessness by the animal care man gives them an opportunity, they break out of their pens and subsequently out of the facility via the heating system.

That's when life gets really hard for them.

Rowf and Snitter are not equipped to live as wild animals. They struggle along, trying to understand the unfamiliar world of the English lake district countryside, for a time with the help of a fox they call The Tod. Meanwhile, in the human world, the scientists' initial attempts to simply ignore the escape of the dogs breaks down and makes the situation even worse when the dogs' sheep killing angers the farmers and a muckraking reporter seizes on the story to create public outrage and sell newspapers. The dogs are soon fleeing active pursuit by people who believe them to be carrying bubonic plague.

[Note 1. Dogs can't carry bubonic plague. Note 2. Despite its ravages in the 14th century, and the death grip it apparently still has on the fear centers of the British brain, bubonic plague is now easily treated with penicillin. It's endemic in the rodent population of the American west, and every year there are a few human cases. It's a really, really bad year when even one person dies. But as recently as the 1990s, the British were driven to impressive heights of hysteria by a few human cases of plague in India, during what was a really bad year for it there.]

Adams is of course sounding a warning note about the moral issues of animal experimentation. Rowf's torment seems impossible to defend; if there is a real purpose to Snitter's brain surgery, we never receive it. Nor are these the most horrific experiments being conducted at A.R.S.E. At the same time, Adams is not setting up cardboard villains, and we see other research at A.R.S.E. stopping the release of truly dangerous products to the unsuspecting public.

But this is,profoundly, the case for the animals, and for their lives to be valued, and not wasted carelessly or for shallow reasons. I was totally captivated by the dogs, and deeply moved by their story.

Highly recommended.

[bragan_8 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Richard Adams is of course best known as the author of Watership Down, but that was not the only book he wrote featuring somewhat anthropomorphized animals. There was also this 1977 novel about two dogs who escape from a research facility where horrible things were done to them.To be honest, I can see why this isn't nearly as well-known as Watership Down. I remember that being a really good book. This one... Well, it's one of those odd novels that feels to me like a good book and a bad one have been somehow fused inextricably together.To begin with, it is perhaps almost more of an anti-animal research or anti-animal cruelty statement than it is a novel. Not that taking a stand against animal cruelty is a bad thing, but Adams clearly really doesn't care if you think his message is heavy-handed. (Which is is. It so, so is.) Personally, as a lover of both science and animals, I find the whole subject of animal experimentation distressingly difficult and complex, but it became clear to me when we were told the experimental facility in this story goes by the acronym A.R.S.E. that we weren't exactly going to get a nuanced examination of scientists and their motives. Well, all right, to be fair, there are some small hints of nuance on the subject at the very end, but mostly it's all horror and cynicism. Deep, deep cynicism, which extends to politics and the press, as well as to science. Sometimes that cynicism feels like well-placed criticism, but more often it just feels like way too much.I have similar feelings about the writing itself. There are long, often tedious sections that are overdone, overwritten, pretentious, even purple. But then, scattered there and there, are little moments of succinctly brilliant prose. It made for a weird reading experience. Kind of an interesting one, admittedly, but weird and a little frustrating.On the positive side, the dogs themselves are good characters, especially poor, mad Snitter, a fox terrier with artificially induced brain damage and terrible, terrible luck. There are moments with him that are genuinely moving. Adams, unsurprisingly for the author of Watership Down, also does a really good job of imagining what the world might look and seem like to dogs who had something of the faculties of humans while still being dogs. (Although he is either unaware of or chooses to ignore the fact that dogs don't have color vision as good as that of humans.) And their survival story is reasonably interesting.But then there's the ending, which not only features a deus ex machina (or possibly two), but actually stops the narrative cold at what should have been an affecting moment for a long, fourth-wall breaking lecture about animals and environmentalism. The fact that it is, perhaps, a pretty good lecture does not make this any less annoying.Ultimately, I can't say I'm sorry I read this. Despite all these issues I had with it, large portions of it work much better than it feels like they really should, and, as I said, reading it was at least an interesting experience. But I don't think I'd recommend it to most people. And I particularly wouldn't recommend it to people who can't handle reading about upsetting things happening to animals, because this is basically Upsetting Things Happening to Animals: The Novel.

[judebird · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

somewhat plodding, but still a good read, magnificent illustrations, wonderful ending

[threadnsong · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

What do I begin with reviewing this book? It is more than just a book about two dogs who escape their cages in an animal research facility. It is about humanity, and the bond between domesticated dogs and humanity, and thoughtlessness and politics, and really just everything. **Trigger Warning - animal experimentation**The book begins with the larger of the two dogs, a large black Lab mix named Rowf, almost ready to finish his time in the tank. This is an experiment that documents how long he is able to maintain consciousness in a large metal tank full of water, until he finally sinks from exhaustion. When he is revived, he returns to his pen where his neighbor, Snitter, is finding a possible way out. And Snitter has undergone brain surgery to test who knows what. While humans can't see it, he has now a gift of the Sight without fully understanding how or why.The two dogs make their way through the animal experimentation building till they are able to escape into the Lake District fells and thence away. Snitter, a fox terrier who had been a good man's pet until a horrible traffic accident, can't understand where all the houses and roads and men are. Rowf, who has never known anything but trouble from humans, is a little less confused but equally savvy that they have to learn to hunt. They are helped in this endeavor by a canny tod (fox for us Yanks) who teaches them how to kill sheep and raid a chicken coop. Naturally, these activities don't make them popular with the inhabitants of Coniston and Dunnerdale.The storyline moves simultaneously between the dogs and tod, the sheep farmers, the men who run the animal research station (acronym A.R.S.E.), newspaperman Digby Driver, and various supporting characters. Richard Adams makes it clear in his preface that all the good people are real (though not necessarily alive at the same time) and all the bad people are made up. As an added bonus, this edition has marvelous drawings and maps of the extraordinary Lake District, and the local dialects are written as they would have been spoken.Not an easy book to get through (see "Triggers" above), but definitely worth the effort.

[themulhern · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Richard Adams's first and most popular book was "Watership Down", essentially an adventure tale all about rabbits, with barely any human intervention, except for the precipitating event and the coda, with "Dr. Adams", perhaps Richard Adams's father.The purpose of the book is didactic; Richard Adams decided to write a novel about the evils of useless animal experimentation, and he went about it very thoroughly, using the animals' point of view.It may not have been his purpose, but like many English authors of that time, he shows his growing contempt for the new sort of English person, venal, bureaucratic, silly, trivial and corrupt. There are excursions into the world of national politics, local politics, and journalism, all satirical yet realistic. The good people are selected from person he has met, just like the brave rabbits of "Watership Down" were modeled on soldiers and resistance fighters he had known during WWII. They are actual ex-soldiers, like Peter Scott, or hard-working sheep farmers. The cynicism about all the rest of the characters is obtrusive. Poor Mr. Powell undergoes a conversion experience of sorts, and when we leave him has formed the resolution of becoming a useful person instead of an animal-torturing bureacrat.The animals are, of course, sympathetic and generally very close to their own deaths throughout the story. Being dogs, i.e., domesticated animals, they have theories about the humans which are not at all like those of the rabbits of "Watership Down", wild animals with very little chosen contact with humans.The memory of WWII persists. Mr. Powell has nightmares about the Russian front while sick. Mr. Ephraim is lonely and tormented by the loss of so many of his family and by the horrors the survivors experienced.The very last part allows Adams to put a dialogue, very Socratic, into the mouths of two famous naturalists. The dialogue is suprisingly uninteresting, unfortunately.A good book, because of the novel subject, expertly told.

[bookconcierge · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

An allegorical tale of love and the struggle of good against evil. Two dogs escape from a laboratory using animals in their experiments. I know I read it when it first came out and I know I enjoyed it, but I don't really remember much about it, so can't give it more than 3*.

[lauraborealis-1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

“The Plague Dogs” was the first book I read in 2016, after having read “Shardik” and (re-read) “Watership Down” in 2015. I love Adams’ style of writing: it’s beautiful, poignant, dark, and often interspersed with the mythical and fantastical. “Plague Dogs” was a wonderful read, though I would put it in second place as far as my favorite Adams books, because “Watership Down” probably remains one of my top 10 books ever. I read it as a kid, and it really affected me, so of course I have differing opinions on his books in terms of how it stacks up to “The Plague Dogs.”What I love about his books is that he takes ideas that are often beloved by children, and crafts them into something wholly beautiful and a little bit wild and dark that is perfect for the well-read adult. This tale follows two dogs, Rowf and Snitter, on their adventures in escaping a government research facility and trying to find their place in the world. They find friend and foes on their adventure, naturally, but the book often goes into the very core of existence. What is the saying, looking into the void, and the void stares back at you? These protagonists are dogs, but they are as well-written and well-rounded as any properly crafted human in other stories. More so than many other books, to be perfectly honest.Rowf was very much the stoic, cynical, plodding type of character be-fitting his large bread. Snitter, on the other hand, was a bit more complex; good-natured and optimistic, and even a little bit crazed because of the experiments done to him. I would say that Snitter is the Fiver character in this book, with the occasional fantastical vision, and the wonderful way he has of telling stories.Adams does what he does so well in many of his books: he creates a word with their own gods and myths, and he writes them convincingly. I’d love to read a book he wrote just about these unique creation myths. Sure, his writing is a bit wordy, but he writes so poignantly that the words easily bleed into imagery. This book is definitely not for everyone, and it is a bit dense at times. Those who are easily bored with prose and poetry would probably not find this book to their taste. But for those into a little darkness (often, more than a little..), and who can easily imagine the words they read happening in front of them, I’d say that they should definitely give this book a chance.

[dbsovereign · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Facing the blistering starkness of the wild, these two escape into the terror of having to face brutal reality...

[burritapal · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Adams writes a book about two dogs who escape from an animal experimentation station. They are physically and mentally traumatized by the torture done to them, but they have no idea what is in store for them, trying to live as wild animals in the Scotland Highlands in winter.

This is a lovely tale and it's written with lovely language, and worth every one of its five stars.

[joeydag · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Band on the run. Classic mis-matched dogs escape from lab. I still enjoyed it.

[iansales_1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

The more I explore Adams’s oeuvre, the more remarkable it becomes. Adams, of course, is best known for his debut, Watership Down, one of those novels which became a cultural phenomenon and continues to be popular today. That’s a difficult act to follow. Adams’s subsequent books sold well but never reached the heights of Watership Down, and few of his books are now in print. Watership Down was followed by a Bronze Age fantasy, Shardik, which reads partly like something already covered many times by genre fantasy and partly like a somewhat sideways approach to fantasy by someone unfamiliar with the genre. And then we have The Plague Dogs, Adams’s third novel, a novel that in precis seems relatively straightforward. Two dogs used in animal research, anthromorphised as the rabbits were in Watership Down, escape the lab and manage to survive in the wild. But this all takes places in the Lake District, and most of the dialogue is written in dialect, including that of some of the animals encountered by the two dogs, Snitter and Rowf. It doesn’t help that the laboratory is called Animal Research (Scientific and Experimental) or ARSE, and that The Plague Dogs actually reads like it might have been intended as a comedy. But not a black comedy. A black comedy would be ironic, and The Plague Dogs is far from ironic. Adams was a singular talent, with an oeuvre worth exploring even now, more than a decade after his last book. His career clearly declined after the mid-1980s, but his books after Watership Down are, I’m discovering, worth reading.

[clicksclan · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Was expecting this book to be a lot more serious than it actually was, considering its subject matter. At the beginning when I saw the A.R.S.E. abbreviation I couldn't help but wonder if it was an unfortunate accident.Adams was obviously very well-read. Loads of obscure literary references, including himself. I especially appreciated the Lord of the Rings reference.Wasn't sure what to think of his reference to himself, couldn't help but think bits of the text were a bit of an author soap box about animal testing.Preferred the bits about people, like Dr Boycott, Powell and Digby Driver, took a while to enjoy the dogs' bits.Ending felt a bit contrived but in a way I preferred a happy ending to the alternative.

[dinadansfriend · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I found it hard to finish this book. I'm a sentimental person. Dogs have it hard enough, with some masters, and then we add research. .(for all the dogs reading this).I'm sorry guys, we really have cruelly exploited your boundless faith in humans. I'll try to do better.

[stefany_6 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I didn't find this to be all that terribly bad, I just felt that it was incredible average and quite honestly blah in parts. From what I have heard, and read myself, I feel that this is definitely the low point in Richard Adams' writing.I think that my two main problems with this book are first the amount of space that Adams uses to push his political agenda down the reader's throat. While I totally agree that the inhumane treatment of animals in research facilities is deplorable and that something definitely must be done about such activities, after a while when reading the novel I began to dread the sections of the book that did not concern themselves directly with the dogs' activities. This leads directly to my second issue, the sections of the book that concern themselves with the dogs begin to get rather droll as well as the dogs never really make any progress towards any sort of productive goal. As a matter of fact, they travel around the countryside for days and end up returning to the same spot that they were in after their first day of freedom following their escape. It gets to be very frustrating.I had no problems what-so-ever with Adams' writing style; he does have a way with putting sentences together that make them flow fairly easily. I also rather enjoyed several of the characters in the novel, especially the two dogs and because of this, really wanted to like the novel, but just simply found it to be more of a chore to read than a pleasure.

[angie_ranck_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

wow this book is excellent. it's the tale of two dogs, Snitter and Rowf, that escape from an animal experimentation laboratory and their journey over the english countryside to escape capture and survive. i had put off reading it for awhile because i had saw a spoiler from it online and was hoping to forget about it before i read the book. when it became obvious that i wasn't going to forget the spoiler i just was like "fuck it" and decided to read the book. turns out the "spoiler" didn't even happen, so the end was a suprise for me. yay! while sections of this book can get slow, overly descriptive, and some of the british dialogue is really hard to understand, other sections are exciting and heartwrenching. for me the ultimate compliment i can give an author is that i love/hate their characters. i know that sounds kinda weird but when fictional characters can inspire rage, love, pity, tears, ect..., you know the author is doing something right. it's this way for me about Harry Potter, The Once And Future King, The Book Of Merlyn, A Monster Calls, His Dark Materials, Watership Down, and now The Plague Dogs

[mumfie_1 · Rating: 1 out of 5 stars]

As a child I loved this book. I found the notion of the dogs trying to re-define their position and value in the world inspiring. I was sympathetic to their confusion as they tried to understand the world around them. I knew it wasn't quite as well written as Watership Down but enjoyed it anyway and re-read it occasionally.I've picked it up now for the first time in years and found it far more inadequate, with the dogs being far better defined characters than the people, the accent of the tod really not worth ploughing through, some very waffly passages and a very cheesy ending.I must have grown up.

[siobhon_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I loved this book after having picked it up at the library an had to find a copy of my own.

[shepdog_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This book, by the author of Watership Down, is a condemnation of the use of animals for experimental research. Two dogs, who have been very ill used for this purpose, escape from a research station in the Lake District in the north of England. A large black mongrel and a terrier, both of whom had been pets before they were kidnapped, struggle to survive on the rough fells. Aside from the drama of the story, compelling to all those who care about animals, there is a wonderful scene of special interest to Border Collie enthusiasts, when the two dogs come upon two sheepdogs herding sheep.

[jnicholson_62 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

A rather touching tale of how society views animals. When two dogs escape from a test laboratory, the scientists there will go to any lengths to cover up their incompetance in allowing the escape. In contrast with most people, Richard Adams treats animals as fully aware and worthy to be protagonists of a novel.

[extrajoker · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

first line: "The water in the metal tank slopped sideways and a treacly ripple ran along the edge, reached the corner and died away."The titular characters are two dogs who have escaped from a research facility where they have been subjected to inhumane experimentation. As in Watership Down, Adams anthropomorphizes his animal characters as a way of commenting on human behavior and society. This book made me cry. A lot. (So did the animated movie adaptation.) This is no surprise, given the nature and degree of suffering undergone by both animal and some human characters, at the hands of people and society.For factual information on animal experimentation, there's Peter Singer. For an engaging, if often heart-breaking, story on the subject, there's The Plague Dogs.

[myopicbookworm · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Certainly not the equal of the masterly Watership Down, and not at all comfortable to read, this harsh tale of two dogs escaping from a vivisection laboratory is too self-consciously angry to be entirely successful as a narrative. Its main revelation is (as in Watership Down) the successful shift to the animal viewpoint: the most telling moment is when the dogs, confronted by the countryside, express their wonder at the power of human beings to sweep away the 'natural' landscape of streets and lamp-posts. Many people will not like this book, but it is worth reading and disliking. MB 15-vi-2007

[osmium_antidote · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

This is another of the books from my daughter's reading list discard pile that I appropriated. I once attended a writing class where the most sage advice was - know when to stop. While the plot was interesting and the characters endearing, Mr. Adams simply did not know where to stop when describing things. Also, the ending was simply too contrived.

[wingedwolf · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Heart-rending, enraging, and, dare I say, depressing...but extraordinary. Two dogs escape from a mental health research facility, and attempt to survive. The original depressing ending has been replaced by Adams by request of his fans, in favor of one that offers more hope.

[banshea_1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

In many ways this book is a poor return to Watership Down. The characters seem extremely familiar to readers of Adams' earlier masterpiece. However, unlike Watership Down, this book comes across as overtly preachy in its handling of social issues and animal welfare. Adams' also includes some rather arrogant self-referencing, and it seemed like he had decided to craft a suitably depressing ending for a depressing book, then at the last minute changed his mind and pulled out one of the biggest deus ex machinas in the history of literature. I think I'll stick with Watership Down, thanks.