I Had a Dog and a Cat - Pictures Drawn by Josef and Karel Capek

By Karel Capek and Josef Capek

I Had a Dog and a Cat is a delightfully charming book, originally written in Czech. Featuring gorgeous black-and-white illustrations, this is the perfect storybook to share with little ones who love animals.

First published in 1940, this wonderful volume is a collation of short children’s stories about our most beloved pets: cats and dogs. I Had a Dog and a Cat was written and illustrated by Czech brothers Josef and Karel Čapek. The comic storybook was then translated into English by Czech couple Marie and Robert Weatherall.

The stories featured in this volume include:

- Minda, or the Breeding of Dogs

- Ben, Benji, Blackie and Bibi

- Iris

- Dashenka

- The Dog Show

- More About Dogs and About Cats Too

• Language: English
• Publisher: Read Books Ltd.
• Release date: Apr 16, 2013
• ISBN: 9781473381872

Karel Capek

Karel Capek was born in 1890 in Czechoslovakia. He was interested in visual art as a teenager and studied philosophy and aesthetics in Prague. During WWI he was exempt from military service because of spinal problems and became a journalist. He campaigned against the rise of communism and in the 1930s his writing became increasingly anti-fascist. He started writing fiction with his brother Josef, a successful painter, and went on to publish science-fiction novels, for which he is best known, as well as detective stories, plays and a singular book on gardening, The Gardener’s Year. He was nominated for the Nobel Prize for Literature several times and the Czech PEN Club created a literary award in his name. He died of pneumonia in 1938.

Book preview

MINDA, OR THE BREEDING OF DOGS

IF a man takes to himself a dog he does so:

1. Either for worldly ostentation.

2. Or to guard the house.

3. Or so as not to feel so lonely.

4. Or for canine pursuits.

5. Or, finally; from his surplus energy, to be the lord and master of his dog.

As for me, I took to myself a dog chiefly because of my surplus energy; it seems as if I had a desire for some living creature in this world to obey me. In short, one morning a man rang my doorbell, dragging on a lead something with red shaggy hair, clearly determined never to enter my gate; after which the man said that that was the Airedale, and he carried in his arms that bristly, dirty object over the threshold and said: Off you go, Minda! (It is true that in the register of the breed that bitch possessed some more pureblooded name, but for some unknown reason she was simply called Minda.) Just then four long legs were visible which with incredible speed clambered underneath the table, and down there underneath the table you could hear something cowering and trembling. It’s a fine breed, Lord, yes, said that man expertly, and made his exit with astonishing celerity leaving us two to our fate.

I have never meditated before on how to get a dog from underneath a table. I suppose that it is usually done by sitting down on the floor and expostulating with the animal, using intellectual and emotional arguments to get it out. I tried it both with a generous and a commanding voice; I begged and bribed Minda with lumps of sugar, I had a go at making a little dog of myself to entice her out. When all attempts had failed, I threw myself under the table, and dragged her out by the legs into the light. It was a brutal and unexpected violence. Minda stood on her legs, humiliated and trembling like a virgin in disgrace, and she strained out of herself her first reproachful little pool.

The very same evening Minda was already lying on my bed and squinting at me with her pleasant, friendly eyes: Man, you can lie under the bed; You, I don’t mind!

The next morning, of course, she fled through the window; fortunately the road-men caught her.

So now I take her on the lead for the needs of Nature, and at the same time I experience the worldly ostentation which is associated with the ownership of a pure-blooded dog.

Look, says a mother to her child, this is a doggie!

I turn with a slightly offended air and say: It’s an Airedale.

The people who get my goat most are those who say: You have got a nice greyhound; but why is he so hairy?

She drags me wherever she cares to go: she has terrific strength, and most peculiar interests; she drags me over rubbish heaps and dumps in the suburbs. Good-natured retired gentlemen meet us struggling each at the opposite ends of the lead wound several times round our legs. Why do you pull at the dog so hard? they enquire censoriously.

I’m only just exercising it, I say quickly as I am hauled away to another heap.

As for watching and guarding, it’s quite true: You really take to yourself a dog so that you can watch it. You follow it vigilantly step by step, and pretty well you never move away from it; you guard it from enemies and thieves; you throw yourself at anyone who threatens it. That is why since ancient times a man guarding and protecting his dog has ever been a symbol of watchfulness and fidelity. Since I began to own a dog I have slept so to speak with my eyes only half-closed, for I watch Minda lest anyone should run off with her. If she feels inclined to go for a walk, I go; if she wants to sleep, I sit and write, pricking my ears so that the slightest sound may not escape me. If a strange dog approaches I bristle up my back, bare my teeth, and growl horribly. Then Minda turns back towards me, wriggles the stump of her tail, and says very clearly: I know that you’re here to look after me.

Even in the idea that a man gets himself a dog so as not to be alone there is much truth. A dog truly doesn’t want to be alone. Just once I left Minda to herself in the hall; as a sign of protest she ate everything that she could find, and was rather unwell afterwards. The second time I shut her in the cellar with the result that she bit a hole through the door. Since then she has never been alone even for a minute. While I write she wants me to play with her. When I lie down, she takes that to be a sign that she may lie down on my chest and bite my nose. Precisely at midnight I have to perform with her the Big Game when with great noise we chase and bite each other, and roll on the floor. When she has run herself out of breath she goes to lie down; then I too am allowed to lie down, on one condition, of course, that I must leave my bedroom door ajar so that Minda may not feel homesick.

I hereby affirm most solemnly that the rearing of a dog is not only a pleasure or luxury but a true, noble and high pursuit. When on your first walk out with the dog the collar snaps, as happened to me, you find that rearing a dog is in fact a field sport, involving you in an obstacle race of a thousand yards, short sprints, cross-country runs, swerves, various jumps, while catching the dog is a superb finish. Then comes an exercise in heavier sport, for you must carry the dog, without its collar, home in your arms; which is not only lifting a weight but lifting a weight that lifts by itself—an exercise which is very intense and rather difficult. At moments I had the feeling that Minda weighed at least a hundredweight, and at times that she had sixteen legs. When the dog’s harness is in order you practise leading it by pulling and tugging, left hand, right hand, even with both hands, a tug of war, mountain climbing over heaps of gravel, you trot, and run, in which exercise form counts for much; for you must put on a face as if you were performing all these physical exercises on your own.

The object or pretext for taking out a dog is to perform its needs of Nature. Minda surprised me by her peculiar, purely girlish delicacy: as long as she physically can bear it, she does nothing outside; it is clear that she is ashamed to reveal her weaknesses. There is a dash of English discretion in her: What’s cooked at home should be eaten at home. She is much perturbed because we men have too little understanding for this side of her character.

And so already in the first few days I discovered that keeping a dog fulfils many objects except one; I wanted to be lord and master of my dog, and it seems to me now that instead Minda is becoming lady and mistress of me. Sometimes I explain that to her openly, and in words that she does not want to understand; for while I am making clear to her that she is a tyrant, pest and a capricious, obstinate, and refractory creature, imposing upon my patience and good-will, she looks boldly into my eyes, wags her stumpy little tail, and laughs, laughs silently with her pink and bristly muzzle, offering her shaggy head so that I may stroke her as well. What, you will even put your paws on my knees? Come, come, Minda, my ugly bitch, and let me finish my article. Let me say—

Well, all right then, Minda, we shall finish it another day.