Dogland: Passion, Glory, and Lots of Slobber at the Westminster Dog Show (Hardcover)

Description

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From Pulitzer Prize finalist and author of The Elephant in the Room comes the first inside account of the Westminster Dog Show—America’s oldest and most beloved dog show—following one dog on his quest to become a champion.

Tommy Tomlinson was watching a dog show on television a few years ago when he had a sudden thought: Are those dogs happy? How about pet dogs—are they happy, too? Those questions sparked a quest to venture inside the dog-show world, in search of a deeper understanding of the bond between dogs and humans that has endured for thousands of years. Dogland shares his surprising, entertaining, and unforgettable adventures.

Tomlinson spends three years on the road and goes behind the scenes at dozens of dog shows across the country, where he is licked, sniffed, or rubbed up against by dogs of nearly every size, shape, and breed. Like a real-life version of Best in Show, Dogland follows one champion show dog—a Samoyed named Striker—and his devoted entourage of breeders, handlers, and owners as he competes in the Westminster Dog Show, the oldest and most famous dog show in America. Tomlinson brings the dog-show circuit to life as he witnesses teams scrambling from town to town in search of championship points and colorful ribbons. Along the way, he also speaks to scientists who have discovered new insights into how dogs and people formed their bond—and how that bond has changed over the centuries.

Engaging, charming, and informative, Dogland is an irresistibly appealing read for pop culture followers and animal lovers alike.

About the Author

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Tommy Tomlinson is the author of The Elephant in the Room, a memoir about being overweight in America. He’s the host of the podcast SouthBound in partnership with WFAE, Charlotte’s NPR station. He has written for publications including Esquire, ESPN the Magazine, Sports Illustrated, Forbes, Garden & Gun, and many others. He spent twenty-three years as a reporter and local columnist for the Charlotte Observer, where he was a finalist for the 2005 Pulitzer Prize in commentary. His stories have been chosen twice for the Best American Sports Writing series (2012 and 2015) and he also appears in the anthology America’s Best Newspaper Writing. He teaches magazine writing at Wake Forest University and has taught at colleges, workshops, and conferences across the country. He also has a Substack called The Writing Shed. Tommy and his wife, Alix Felsing, live in Charlotte with Alix’s mom and a cat.

Praise For…

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PRAISE FOR THE ELEPHANT IN THE ROOM:

“Inspirational . . . I loved this book. I found myself sneak-reading it from the moment it came in the door. As with a sack of White Castle burgers, I hated to reach the end. . . . [Tomlinson] writes exceedingly well. . . . His clean and witty and punchy sentences, his smarts and his middle-class sensibility made me yearn for the kind of down-to-earth columnist I often read in the 1980s and 1990s but barely seems to exist any longer.”
—Dwight Garner, The New York Times

“Powerful . . . A funny and moving account of what life is like for someone who carries extra weight.”
—Garden & Gun

“A beautiful book . . . The man can write . . . For anyone who has ever loved a person of not just a few extra pounds but 100 or more—and wondered, ‘How the heck did that happen?’—it will make you understand in a way you didn’t before.”
—Judith Newman, The New York Times Book Review

“The Elephant in the Room . . . is for anyone who’s struggled with their weight, who’s struggled with addiction, or for the people who love them.”
—Salisbury Post

“This book deserves all the rave reviews that are pouring in. It’s funny and poignant and life-affirming. . . . An acclaimed journalist and Pulitzer Prize finalist, Tomlinson can write like nobody’s business.”
—Traverse City Record Eagle

“Add this to your reading list ASAP.”
—Charlotte Magazine

“The Elephant in the Room is more than a memoir of an ever-supersizing America. It’s a love story. It’s also a whipsmart history of working-class America, where the fast-food line is long and a weary mother’s love is shown in third helpings of cornbread and butter beans. Tommy Tomlinson’s singular voice—of journalist, Southerner, son, and of a husband who knows how lucky he is—is at turns punchy and poetic, heartbreaking and laugh-out-loud, and full of language so authentically fresh it needs no sell-by date. I could not turn the pages fast enough.”
—Beth Macy, author of Dopesick

“I just read a wonderful book: The Elephant in the Room by Tommy Tomlinson. It’s about his extreme weight struggles and also about family, marriage, class, journalism, the South, and food. It’s warm and funny and honest and painful and poignant. I found it genuinely unputdownable.”
—Curtis Sittenfeld, author of Prep and American Wife, on Twitter