Free Prime book about a dog who showed up on a property in New England. It is an okay memoir of the life of this dog. Written 1961. The rib-thin, black-and-white rabbit hound turned up at Hal Borland's Connecticut farm one Christmas night in the middle of a nasty winter storm. Pat, as the dog came to be known, and his raffish travelling companion, a young pup, "were even more unwelcome than the weather," but after a few preliminaries both settled in as members of the Borland household. The pup eventually found his permanent home elsewhere, but Pat became Hal Borland's true companion - and a local legend, the terror of woodchucks for miles around. With his keen sensitivity to the natural world, Borland here recounts, with deep affection and wonder, how a man and his dog can form a magical and unforgettable partnership. First published in 1961, THE DOG WHO CAME TO STAY "will appeal to many sportsmen and to all people who have ever been closely attached to a dog." (The New York Times Book Review)

Published in 1961, this is another snippet of Hal Borland's life of how a stray dog chose to own him. The last book, "High, Wide and Lonesome: Growing Up On the Colorado Frontier", set in 1910 in the wild Colorado frontier portrayed five years of his life from age 10 to 15. In this story, he is now married to Barbara, both freelance writers, looking to live a more carefree life out in the country. They are quite aged, having just purchased a 100 acre farm in the upper part of the Housatonic Valley called Weatogue, in the fartherest upper northwest corner of Connecticut, when two stray male dogs appeared in the middle of the night and also called it home. Pat, part foxhound, is the prominent dog to become a part of their lives. The other was too young and restless, so they eventually ended up giving him away to a family with a young boy who was down because he had just lost his dog.

If you have a dog or dogs that are part of your family, you will completely love and understand just what he is talking about in this book, if not, then you might find it pretty boring. I could relate to just about every subject he touched on while learning Pat's, sometimes insufferable, behavior and dog language (barks). They had a lot of adventures together living in the valley with a river running through it and pasture on one side and mountains on the other. Dogs do have a way of stealing your heart and, eventually, breaking your heart.

I have only owned strayed dogs, and they have all had their very own distinct personalities. We've never owned more than two dogs at a time since we have a tendancy to let them come indoors and live a life with us. That's all we can handle, and they show up just in time. As one dog dies, another dog seems to choose us to own. Love that!
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This is a well told story. The author writes beautifully about his dog and the natural environment in which the story takes place. ( )

This quiet book is a story of life in the countryside, life with a good farm dog. Well, I don't know if I could entirely call it a quiet book, as there are plenty of dogfights, fierce encounters with bobcats and porcupines, confrontations with rude trespassing hunters and poachers. But overall, it has a calm, quiet voice. It's full of nature writing- just as much a story of the changing seasons, the wildlife and forest around the farm as it is about the dog. How he came to their farm, a wandering stray who gradually settled into their lives. The story tells of the dog's personality, his intelligence and flaws, his run-ins and friendships with other dogs in the neighborhood, his skills at hunting and his yearly battle against woodchucks (when the dog saw that his people didn't want woodchucks in the garden, he took it upon himself to go after any woodchucks in the area). It's obviously a book written from a different era; the dog is disciplined with slaps and a rolled-up newspaper (but his new owners are concerned that he shows fear of brooms and mops- they surmise he must have once been beaten with those objects, which they consider abuse). The dog is welcomed in the house but forbidden certain rooms and sleeps outside in a refurbished woodshed- oddly enough people complain about this on other reviews sites but if you pay attention in the book, the author tells how when the weather was particularly bad or the dog recovering from injuries, they invited him to sleep in the house and the dog made it apparent he preferred to sleep in the hay in his shed. (Where he was locked in to keep him from roaming at night and being a nuisance to neighbors or wildlife). One aspect of the book I most liked was reading about how readily the man could communicate with his dog, understanding its intentions and wants from body language, facial expression, the tone of its bark or whimper, general demeanor. I think any dog owner can appreciate the depth of connection a person and dog can develop.

You might be glad to know that although the dog is old and showing his age near the end of the book, it does not end with his death but shows him gracefully entering his 'golden years' in the home he has chosen.

In many ways this book reminded me of Where the Red Fern Grows, but a more in-depth story written for adults.

from the Dogear Diary ( )

If you like dogs you will enjoy this book.
Two dogs came to the home of the author on Christmas night on a cold, snowy night in Connecticut a number of decades ago. Both Hal, the author and Barbara, his wife agreed that they did not want or need a dog.
Enjoy the antics of Pat, a true gentleman and country dog, who adopted Hal and Barbara as his own. ( )