Shakespeare’s Dog - Rotten Poetry

Every Dog Has His Day But Only One Dog In These Plays

It is a little-known fact that there is only one dog in all of Shakespeare’s plays. I guess it is not something that people really think about. ‘Dog’ is used many times in Shakespeare’s work to portray one character by another or used for symbolism, but there is only one real dog with his own “sour” character and he is called Crab. The good characteristics of faithfulness and reliability are not attributes of this pet, not, as in The Merry Wives of Windsor, is he “a good, and a fair dog”. Crab himself is probably named thus because he is like the bitter tasting crab apple to his owner, not the pincered crustacean as one automatically assumes. It is an odd name for a dog to be sure.

Crab appears in Two Gentlemen Of Verona, which some say was Shakespeare’s first play. It would make sense if this were true. William would soon discover the uncertainty around an animal learning and responding to its cues or doing something on stage that was not quite expected, therefore, he might make an informed decision to remove the option for future productions. As Two Gentlemen of Verona is a comedy, a dog on stage might have been highly entertaining, but I can only recollect a warm fuzzy feeling at the Crab I observed at a modern production in Sheffield. It was a well behaved dog indeed. Who knows the real reason for Shakespeare having a one dog show? Maybe the “Dog will have his day” (Hamlet). Needless to say the omittance of a real dog didn’t stop William from referring to dogs around 200 times in further works. : “Let slip the dogs of war!” (Julius Caesar) or “To dog his heels” (Henry IV Part 1) memorable phrases still used to this day.

An amusing monologue from Launce shows us how the dog is a “cruel hearted cur” for not shedding one tear at his parting, like “a stone” and insulted at being like a dog, which of course he is and so what does Launce really expect? Not that I have known any unfeeling dogs myself. They mostly seem excitable, full of energy and sensitive to their owner’s emotional state. Maybe Crab is hard of hearing. All his family are in tears and the dog just sits.