Intelligent and Loyal
Intelligent and Loyal: A Celebration of the Mongrel is a 1981 humorous, non-fiction work by English author Jilly Cooper. A self-professed dog lover and "mongrel addict", Cooper gathered stories for the book by crowd-sourcing contributions from newspaper readers with an advert entitled "Mongrels Lib". The book was one of the earliest works entirely dedicated to mongrels. It was illustrated by photographs sent by readers, as well as newly-commissioned images by Graham Wood. Cooper created her own humorous typology for mongrels, with 24 varieties. On publication, the Southall Gazette described it as a book "no dog lover would want to miss". Its title was altered in 1992 to Mongrel Magic and the volume was republished.
Synopsis
The book is based on a wide range of crowd-sourced anecdotes from the owners of mongrels. Cooper arranged these stories into thematic chapters based on characteristics or habits of the dogs. The first chapter discusses how a mongrel is defined and how to classify the many variations of mongrel that exist. Chapters that focus on characteristics include those on intelligence, loyalty, comfort, sexuality, sociability and clairvoyance. Chapters that focus on habits include those on fighting, defence, street mongrels, food and diet, associations with other animals, military dogs and old age.Background
Cooper is a self-professed dog lover and "mongrel addict". She grew up in a family that had mongrels, and as an adult owned several, including one called Fortnum and his daughters Mabel and Barbara, and later Gypsy and Hero. She reportedly wore a locket in which she kept a photograph of one of her mongrels after they died, and selected a mongrel as her choice of animal to be reincarnated as.To gather stories about mongrels for the book, Cooper put an advert in newspapers asking people to share stories about their pets for the book. The advert was entitled Mongrels Lib. She received thousands of responses as a result. The advert read:
Respondents also sent photographs of their pets and many of these illustrated the book, alongside new images taken by Graham Wood, who was British Press Photographer of the Year in 1980. Wood was in fact scared of dogs, due to experiences in early childhood.
Intelligent and Loyal was the earliest book to be written exclusively about mongrels. In it Cooper created her own humorous typology for mongrels, with 24 varieties such as the Vertical Shagpile, the Spanish Policeman's Hat-Ear, the Pied Wagtail, the Family Circler, the Hover Cur, amongst others.