That's my memory of the book, but without actually reading it again, I can't be sure anymore. It was over twenty years ago that I read it. However, after trying to find the piece to that puzzle, I now am pretty sure she "embellished" about how old the dog was when he died. Why? No clue. But I clearly read a magazine article about Spike and his "gift" he presented at the 60 minutes offices in NY, she asked Don Hewitt what he was doing when he was only 3, as that was how old the dog was. The article was in 1989. Which makes sense because if the dog died at 19, by my calculations, he would have been purchased in 1981. I had no clue who she was at that time, and she wasn't guest hosting for Carson till 1982. She got her own show in 1986. Her husband died in 1987.
I won't disparage her, I actually liked her as a comedienne and woman, even if I wasn't too fond of her look after all the plastic surgery. But it's her choice obviously, and she made way more of herself than I ever have! Maybe she didn't say abused, maybe she said he was a shelter dog and I assumed she was saying he was somehow abused. I did actually find several interviews where she stated over and over that all her dogs were rescue dogs. Maybe they were after Spike? I would never call my parents dumb breeders, or backyard breeders, they carefully chose quality dogs as pets, and loved the breed and brought it to CA. I did show my dog, and he was highly trained, something I don't really hear said about the breed usually. As a matter of fact, I found most of the breed standard stuff I read later to not be typical of my dog at all, and I treasure the UK book on the breed. The standard at the time of publishing was quite different from the US standard I read a few years later. |