Twenty-five writers from around South Carolina tell their favorite dog stories.

Why do writers love dogs? Not always for the same reasons all the rest of us do. Dorothea Benton Frank’s dog Henry teaches her about self-righteous indignation every time she leaves on a book tour. Ron Rash learns to appreciate his misanthropic mutt Pepper after he bites his daughter’s suitor. For Tommy Hays the dog is something not even a psychic can separate from the family. For some writers, such as Mary Alice Monroe, a Bernese Mountain dog arrives via Swiss Air. For George Singleton, they just wander into his Pickens County yard.

The connection between dogs and humans in the geographic region known as South Carolina goes back over 10,000 years. There’s even a wild dog in the Lowcountry known as the Carolina Dog, whose ancestors may have accompanied the first Americans across the Bering ice bridge.

In Literary Dogs & Their South Carolina Writers twenty-five of the Palmetto State’s most beloved authors introduce you to their most memorable dogs. There is Padgett Powell’s “Ode to Spode,” Josephine Humphreys’ paean to a poodle, and Roger Pinckney’s Daufuskie Dog-ageddon. Meet Marshall Chapman’s Impy, Mindy Friddle’s Otto, Beth Webb Hart’s Bo Peep, and more. From bird dogs to bad dogs, wild dogs to café dogs, get to know these canines and their literary companions.