A Dog's Tale

A Dog's Tale is a short story by Mark Twain, first published in Harper's Magazine in December 1903 and issued as a book in 1904.

This short story, narrated in first person by the family pet, tells the story of a dog who is the daughter of a collie mother and a St. Bernard father.

It starts from her first stage as a puppy and how she is separated from her mother, something she cannot understand. Then she is taken in by a family with a small child.

One day she drags the baby out of a nursery fire, and the master, seeing her haul the child across the floor, thinks she is savaging it and beats her with his cane. The truth comes out and she is celebrated — until the same master, a scientist, uses her own puppy in an experiment in front of an audience of his friends.

Twain wrote it as an attack on vivisection, and it is the flat, trusting voice of the narrator — who never grasps what is being done to her — that gives the story its force.

"When she told the meaning of a big word they were all so taken up with admiration that it never occurred to any dog to doubt if it was the right one; and that was natural, because, for one thing, she answered up so promptly that it seemed like a dictionary speaking, and for another thing, where could they find out whether it was right or not? for she was the only cultivated dog there was".

This book is illustrated with original drawings.