`Cooking’ a pet project that ponders ways of dogs> Deer Isle writer makes no apology for canine attachments

COOKING WITH DOGS by Karen Dowell, Two Dog Press, Deer Isle, Maine, 64 pages, $19.99.

I’m a cat person. I used to be a dog person. It’s just that we couldn’t have a dog in our apartment, so we got a cat. That’s the unspectacular story of how I got to be a cat, rather than a dog person.

But I grew up with dogs. First there was Ralph, who was a female. Then there was Boo, who had lots of puppies — my favorite of which were named Killer and Geraldine.

Our current pet, Zoe, doesn’t give the unconditional devotion of either Ralph or Boo, but she often behaves like a dog, most notably when I am in the kitchen. She follows me from task to task, sitting on a nearby stool and watching as I do the dishes, or sprawled — somehow neatly — on the floor as I chop vegetables. Her little head moves back and forth, back and forth with my activity. Unlike a dog, she won’t touch scraps of food. But she’s there in the canine spirit of companion and confidant.

For this reason, I was drawn to Karen Dowell’s gift book “Cooking with Dogs,” published by Two Dog Press in Deer Isle. This is not a cookbook. And it is not a poetry book. Nevertheless, the publisher DOES support organizations that help homeless, sick and abused dogs. In fact, Two Dog Press is donating a portion of the proceeds to dog organizations and shelters, such as the Bangor Humane Society and Hancock County SPCA.

But “Cooking with Dogs” is actually a collection of meditations on the presence and sentience of dogs. It is, in a metaphorical sense, about “cooking.” That is, if you use the word cooking as in the jazz term meaning to be inspired and excited by its topic.

Dowell, a former business writer who lives in Deer Isle, clearly has an intimate bond with her Labrador retrievers. She writes imagistically about their ubiquitous spot in the family, or the way they bring her gifts (a dolphin, a frog), or their projected thoughts on Buddhism.

Her dog “sons” are her darlings, even if they do like to cat about secretly at night and grumble at ghosts she can’t see. At their worst, they shed hair into her coffee. At their best, they play the roles of children. “How can you feel sorry for a mom whose kids will never fall in with the wrong crowd, do drugs, or drop out of school?” Dowell writes in a vignette called “Motherhood.” “Our boys and girls grow old, but never grow up.”

Which, of course, reveals a little something about Dowell’s take on life. As with any dog person worth her salt, however, Dowell makes no apologies for her attachments. Simply put: A dog is man’s best friend. Woman’s, too. Forget all those problematic beasts that walk on two legs.

Dowell was joined in this project by 10 artists whose illustrations and drawings add whim, vim and considerable color to this tribute. You know this group shares Dowell’s enthusiasm because, in one bio, one of the artists is said to have noted that “people have always been a big disappointment for him, whereas dogs are in it for the long haul.”

“Cooking with Dogs” is for people who take their bowsers seriously — probably for very few others, and certainly not for cat people. Dowell’s work is essentially a playful book, written with an observant eye and an earnest style that is sure to get more than a few tails wagging.