The Summary of Snapshot Of A Dog Written By James Grover Thurber (1894-1961)

About Author

Grover Thurber (1894-1961) is probably America’s best-loved humorist. He was also a skillful artist and a cartoonist. For many years he kept the world laughing with his fables and cartoons in the New Yorker Magazine. Although he loves to joke about the foolish things people do,he also can be quite a serious social critic.

Summary of Snapshot Of A Dog

While playing as a boy, James Thurber was blinded in one eye, and for long fought a grim battle against loss of sight in the other. (From the “word snapshots” that he gives in his writings, one can imagine how sharp the good eye was!

Thurber wrote  several works of fiction on the comedy of the human condition, notably the story The Secret Life of Walter Mitty. His works include The Last Flower, The Male Animal, and The Wonderful O.

Snapshot Of A Dog James Thurber Summary

One day, the writer James Thurber found a dim photograph of Rex, their pet dog. Their dog died twenty five years ago. It made him think back to his childhood and he gives us an account of Rex and its qualities.

Rex was a male terrier. He was big and muscular. He was powerful as a wrestler. He was noble and never lost his dignity. He was tenacious in nature.

Snapshot Of A Dog Short Story

Rex was a tremendous fighter. But he never started any fight. The technique of Rex was to have a grip of the enemy’s ear at the root and not to leave it under any circumstances. One such fight was with a big dog of a Negro owner. Managed boldly to pick them up and threw them away in order to separate them. They fell ten feet away but Rex still held on. The two dogs got into the middle of the car tracks.

Snapshot of A Dog Essay

A motor man tried to pry Rex’s jaws open with a switch rod. Another person held burning stick close to Rex’ still but he paid no attention. Finally the Oak Street Fire Department stepped in and turned on a powerful stream of water on the dogs. Rex held on for several moments before he finally let the other dog go.

Some of the writer’s relatives, who came to know this incident, advised them to get rid of Rex but the brothers did not listen. But Rex was gentle by nature. He never growled at anyone and never bit a person except prowlers in his life time. Rex killed cats quickly an neatly without any malice. He never killed nor even chased a squirrel. He never ran barking after wagons or automobiles. He seemed to have his own philosophy about such things. Swimming was his favorite recreation. He jumped from eight feet and swam up and downstream like a man. He would bring back anything thrown into the stream.


James Thurber Dog Stories

One night they found Rex trying to get a small chest of drawers up onto the porch from a distance of half a mile. Nothing was impossible for Rex. Rex was just an amateur jumper. Six feet was easy for him.

One day Rex came home almost beaten to death by the owner of some dog. He had a terrible beating. Rex waited for the arrival of one of its owners. When the third brother came, he touched his and with his nose. He fell down and died.

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