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Agatha Christie: For the Love of Dogs
It is hard to overstate the importance of four-legged friends in Agatha’s life. From a young age she showed an appreciation for dogs that reflected their status as a member of the family. To celebrate Christie’s birthday, September 15th, we trace the author’s love of pets from an initial 5th birthday present of her own puppy to her care for dogs that continued well into her older years at home with Max, and throughout her stories.
Meet George Washington
The arrival of Agatha’s first dog of her own, George Washington (aka Tony), elicited such shock and alarm that she was rendered speechless:
On my fifth birthday, I was given a dog. It was the most shattering thing that ever happened to me; such unbelievable joy, that I was unable to say a word.
Her father later remarked that he was disappointed in her reaction, but Clara understood Agatha’s silence to be motivated by a profound joy at the gift.
Tony was a Yorkshire Terrier who got along splendidly with her brother Monty’s dog, Scotty, an ageing Dandie Dinmont Terrier who he would share the house and family affection with.
After Agatha’s father’s death in 1901, her mother took her to Paris in her early teens. Tony was forced to spend a year apart from the loving duo, but far from pining, he embraced his new role as a “Grand Duke”.
When his dinner was prepared and brought, Froudie's warning was proved true. Tony looked at it, looked up at my mother and at me, moved a few steps away and sat down, waiting like a grand seigneur to have each morsel fed to him. […] 'It's no good,' she said. 'He will have to learn to eat his dinner properly, as he used to do. Leave his dinner down there. He'll go and eat it presently.' But Tony did not go and eat it. He sat there. And never have I seen a dog more overcome with righteous indignation. His large, sorrowful, brown eyes went round the assembled family and back to his plate. He was clearly saying, 'I want it. Don't you see ? I want my dinner. Give it to me.' However, my mother was firm.
Upon recovering from his fall from grace, Tony continued to live contentedly amongst the Miller family who remained at Ashfield for the rest of his days.
Agatha's Love of Dogs
This photo (exact date and location unknown) is typical of the “society photos” captured of young women at the time. The dog, named Rip, likely belonged to her sister Madge, and seems quite at ease posing with Agatha here. Both her brother and sister owned dogs, and Christie would own dogs with her first husband Archie, as well as with her second husband Max. Her daughter Rosalind also owned several, and there are such charming photos of the author surrounded by plentiful pets throughout her life (Agatha Christie at Home by Hilary Macaskill; Agatha Christie by Lucy Worsley and Agatha Christie: A Biography by Janet Morgan all contain these).
Christie biographies flag the constant presence of dogs in the author’s life. Janet Morgan includes details about a ‘Poodle Party’ Christie hosted at Ashfield, where guests were all encouraged to dress up as dogs (except Clara, who was exempt).
When Agatha Christie set off on her ten-month trip around the world with Archie she left their daughter Rosalind behind with her mother and sister, along with their dog Joey (a Jack Russell). Agatha’s letters to her mother contain extensive details about the dogs she met on their travels, and she recalls others in her autobiography too.
Played bridge with Dr Gordon (Belcher’s doctor) and his mother last night. They have a most delightful dog. His name is Joe! A smooth haired fox terrier, well bred, and with the same delightful eagerness of manner that makes our Joey so fresh and attractive. When commanded he chases his tail, going round and round, and suddenly pausing in triumph with it firmly clamped between his teeth! Then he goes out of the room to ‘hide his eyes’ while a piece of biscuit is hidden and then tears in to look for it
I forget now where we went next; possibly Ottawa, which I loved. It was the fall, and the maple woods were beautiful. We stayed in a private house with a middle-aged admiral, a charming man who had a most lovely Alsatian dog. He used to take me out driving in a dog-cart through the maple trees.
After Joey would come Peter, a gift for Rosalind when they lived at Sunningdale who will crop up again when we explore dogs in Christie’s stories.
Agatha’s love of dogs persisted as her life progressed. Her marriage to Max Mallowan, the archaeologist in 1930, prompted her to discover plenty of beloved animals on trips to Iraq and Syria, whilst she left her own in the capable hands of her sister.
In Come, Tell Me How You Live she recalls fondly the puppies they named on their first dig at Arpachiyah, near Mosul. Max’s favourite, nicknamed "Swiss Miss", was always called first for their dinner. They feared for her life when they left, as she had gone lame, but saw her again two years later complete with a puppy.
Dogs also surrounded them in Chagar Bazar, and they even ended up rescuing one from the desert (against the wishes of the locals) who they named Hiyou.
Hiyou turns out to be a dog of amazing character. Avid for life, she is absolutely intrepid, and shows no fear of anything or anyone." … She attends all meals, and is so insistent that you cannot withstand her. She does not beg—but demands
During the War years, when Max was relocated abroad and Agatha was living at Lawn Road Flats (now the Isokon Building) she fondly recalls the company of their dog James, a white Sealyham.
I had the Sealyham with me because Carlo was now working in a munition factory and unable to have him there. They were very good to me at University College Hospital: they let me bring him to the dispensary. James behaved impeccably. He laid his white sausage-like body out under the shelves of bottles and remained there, occasionally accepting kind attentions from the charwoman when she was cleaning
The novelist Edmund Crispin recalls being surrounded by children and dogs on his visits to Greenway, Agatha Christie’s holiday home, and this 1948 photo of Agatha picnicking on Dartmoor with daughter Rosalind, grandson Mathew, and family friend Oliver Gurney shows three dogs joining them for this jolly outing: two Manchester Terriers called Popcorn and Nutmeg, and a Collie named Sinbad.
In addition to sharing her life with dogs, she also notes some similarities between herself and them in terms of personality and characteristics.
I sometimes think that in my last incarnation, if the theory of reincarnation is right, I must have been a dog. I have a great many of the dog's habits. If anybody is undertaking anything or going anywhere I always want to be taken with them and do it too.
Her depiction of herself as a follower, who needs company to achieve her aims feel somewhat at odds with the independent spirited woman who set off on her own on the Orient Express in 1929. Her desire to retreat when ill though, are certainly relatable to plenty:
[I]t was very much how I feel when I am ill: I want people to go away and leave me. It is the feeling of the dog who crawls away to a quiet corner and hopes to be left undisturbed until the miracle happens and he feels himself again.
Those hoping to catch Agatha Christie at a dedicated writing desk on one of their visits would have been disappointed. She reflects that, in this way too, she resembles her canine companions:
Many friends have said to me, 'I never know when you write your books, because I've never seen you writing, or even seen you go away to write.' I must behave rather as dogs do when they retire with a bone: they depart for an odd half hour. They return self-consciously with mud on their noses. I do much the same.
It is not just in Christie’s autobiographical writing where dogs feature prominently though, they appear throughout plenty of her stories too.
Dogs in Agatha Christie's Works
During Christie’s writing career she dedicated not one but two books to her dog Peter.
The 1928 novel The Mystery of the Blue Train was dedicated to her assistant and friend Carlotta [Carlo], and Peter. She described them as “two distinguished members of the O.F.D” which stood for Order of the Faithful Dogs.
The dedication to Dumb Witness is as follows:
to Dear Peter, most faithful of friends and dearest of companions, a dog in a thousand.
Peter takes a key role in the book as the eponymous witness and is given the name of Bob. The case Poirot must solve is one of a death from the recent past. Emily Arundell, mistress of Littlegreen House has died, but then the Belgian sleuth receives a letter from beyond the grave asking for his help to investigate a fall (which was blamed on Bob leaving his ball on the stairs) that she suspected was attempted murder by a member of her household or family.
Hastings isn’t too keen on the case, or the systematic lies Poirot tells to involve himself in it, but he takes an immediate liking to Bob. Despite the title suggesting Bob has no voice, we hear his “thoughts” from Hastings’ narrative.
Bob, indeed, having discovered the intruders, completely changed his manner. He fussed in and introduced himself to us in an agreeable manner. ‘Pleased to meet you, I’m sure,’ he observed as he sniffed round our ankles. ‘Excuse the noise, won’t you, but I have my job to do. Got to be careful who we let in, you know. But it’s a dull life and I’m really quite pleased to see a visitor. Dogs of your own, I fancy?’
Bob’s ability to detect that Poirot is not “a doggy person” indicates to the reader that he is perceptive, as does his intelligent ball game that supposedly caused Emily’s accident. Therefore, his dislike of Miss Lawson, a companion who is reportedly treated “worse than a dog” but inherits the entire £375K Arundell fortune, raises readers' suspicions.
Without spoiling the delightfully devious plot of Dumb Witness, it is fair to say that, despite being absent from plenty of chapters, Bob has captured the hearts of readers and cover designers since he arrived on the page in 1937. The entire book is a loving tribute to a pet, and member of the family, who helped Christie though some difficult years and would sadly pass away the following year, in 1938.
She adds a terrier so fascinating that even Poirot himself is nearly driven from the centre of the stage.
Despite being the best-known dog in Christie’s stories, several others crop up in her works and indicate both her affection for them, and her respect for their intelligence.
In ‘Next to a Dog’ [1929] Joyce’s life after her husband dies is very miserable. A promise of assistance from her husband’s aunt proves fruitless, and her comfort comes from Terry, an ageing terrier that was a gift from her late husband Michael.
Terry darling, what are we going to do? What’s going to become of us? Oh! Terry darling, I’m so tired.
This short story draws a clear distinction between those who understand the affection for pets, and those who do not. Joyce’s landlady Mrs Barnes can’t understand why she won’t take a post that won’t accommodate Terry, or why she dotes on him.
You’re crazy about that cantankerous brute. Yes, that’s what I say—and that’s what he is.
We’d encourage readers to seek out this pleasing short story which appears in The Golden Ball and Other Stories [US] and Problem at Pollensa Bay [UK] to explore Christie’s love of dogs for themselves.
The clever collection of stories The Labours of Hercules [1947] also features a couple of excellent short stories starring canines. In the opening labour, ‘The Nemean Lion’, a series of Pekinese dog thefts for ransom demand Poirot’s attention. He is called in by a disgruntled husband to address ‘the racket’:
Sir Joseph grunted. He said ‘You surprise me! I should have said you’d have no end of women pestering you about their pet dogs.’ ‘That, certainly. But it is the first time that I am summoned by the husband in the case.’
The short story explores society roles and perception, as well as the resilience (and brilliance) of dogs. In fact, pets bookend this short story collection, as the final labour ‘The Capture of Cerberus’ features an entirely different breed of dog.
Cerberus, a Molossian hound, belongs to Vera Rossakoff. He is both her pet, and a guard dog for her club, which is mischievously named ‘Hell’. After a chance encounter on the London Underground leads Poirot back to Vera, he is immediately acquainted with a large dog who is causing some undercover police a spot of trouble. His appearance is threatening “A cavernous red mouth yawned; then came a snap as the powerful jaws closed again” but his loyalty to, and affection for his owner reign supreme.
Vera Rossakoff flung her arms round the dog’s neck and embraced him passionately, rising on tip-toe to do so
We recommend reading this excellent collection of Poirot stories yourselves, to understand the part dogs play in the book, and illuminate Christie’s affection for them further.
The final Tommy and Tuppence novel, Postern of Fate, is dedicated to ‘Hannibal and his master’. The Beresfords are the proud owner of the dog, Hannibal, in this 1973 work, and he is clearly much-loved by the couple.
By his description a reader spots plenty of parallels between the fictional dog and Max and Agatha’s beloved Bingo.
Hannibal was a small black dog, very glossy, with interesting tan patches on his behind and each side of his cheeks. He was a Manchester terrier of very pure pedigree and he considered himself to be on a much higher level of sophistication and aristocracy than any other dog he met.
Dogs also crop up in the Mary Westmacott stories. Perhaps most memorably in The Burden, when the suggestion of a dog is put forward to help ease the unhappiness of daughter Laura who has recently lost her young brother.
‘Why don’t you get that child a dog?’ Mr Baldock demanded suddenly of his friend and crony, Laura’s father. […] ‘What child?’ he asked, puzzled. […] ‘Why on earth should I?’ demanded Mr Franklin. ‘Dogs, in my opinion, are a nuisance, always coming in with muddy paws, and ruining the carpets.’ […] ‘‘A dog,’ said Mr Baldock, in his lecture-room style, which was capable of rousing almost anybody to violent irritation, ‘has an extraordinary power of bolstering up the human ego.’ […] ‘But I have the inveterate weakness of liking to see human beings happy. I’d like to see Laura happy.’ ‘Laura’s perfectly happy,’ said Laura’s father. ‘And anyway she’s got a kitten,’ he added.
As the narrative continues to explore Laura’s difficult life, readers can be certain that a childhood dog might not have solved her longer-lasting issues, but Christie’s celebration of the contribution of dogs throughout her work makes the reader sure it might have been a good idea to give her one anyway.
We hope you’ve enjoyed exploring dogs from the life and works of Agatha Christie. Why not share a photo of your beloved pet with your latest read with us on Instagram? We love to see them.
