Originally published as Spott's Canine Miscellany—in jest, after the popular compendium known as Schott's—this small volume is likewise packed muzzle to hock with randomly arranged yet always fascinating information on Canis familiaris and his wilder cousins. These hundreds of canine facts and tidbits embrace the essential, the trivial, the intriguing, and the extraordinary, with contributors from Plato ("A dog has the soul of a philosopher") to Marx: "Outside of a dog, a book is man's best friend. Inside a dog it's too dark to read" (okay, Groucho Marx). Here too, the origins of dog names, an international guide to the word "dog," weights and breeds, Crufts winners, Aesop's fabled dogs, most popular breeds, dog bite statistics, Lassie, and dogs on the Titanic.