The Digging-est Dog

The Digging-Est Dog is a children's book authored by Al Perkins and illustrated by Eric Gurney. The book was first published on August 12, 1967 as part of the Dr. Seuss Beginner Books series.

Plot

A dog sits in a pet store, unpurchased, for a considerable period of time. One afternoon (precisely at 4:30 PM) a young man, Sammy Brown, sees the dog, purchases him, renames him "Duke", and takes him to his farmhouse outside of town.

The next day Sammy introduces Duke to some neighborhood dogs. The dogs begin to dig, but Duke's long tenure on the pet shop's stone floor has eroded his skills. Disgusted that he is unable to dig, the other dogs leave. Sammy attempts to teach Duke to dig, but is unsuccessful. All night, Duke worries about his inability to dig and how he is unable to make Sammy happy.

The following day, Duke makes one final attempt to dig, and is successful. However, he is now compelled to dig anything. In his compulsion, he digs up the entire town, including a garden, a barbershop and its customer, and a highway. He is stopped at the top of a hill by a now-irate Sammy, who has decided to return Duke to the pet store. Surrounded by Sammy and the neighborhood dogs, Duke escapes by digging straight down, only to end up digging a well and face drowning. Realizing that his anger frightened Duke, Sammy gets the reluctant neighborhood dogs to form a "dog chain" to pull Duke out of the well.

Duke spends the rest of the day undoing the damage he caused, and he is on good terms with Sammy and the other dogs by the end of the story, learning to use his skills to plow a garden.^[1]

References