One of the most endearing characters in the comic strip Mutts by Patrick McDonnell will take the spotlight in a new collection this September. Breaking the Chain: The Guard Dog Story tells the heartbreaking and uplifting story of Guard Dog, the dog that spent more than 20 years chained up in his yard before ultimately being freed.
Abrams ComicsArts will publish the collection of strips that detail how Guard Dog’s owners abandoned him as they moved away, and his subsequent rescue by his friends Mooch and Earl, and a little girl named Doozy who frequently visited him over the years.
“This wasn’t a villain; this was a tragic character,” McDonnell writes in his introduction to the book. “I thought of all the real dogs in this country and around the world who suffer the same unbearable fate. Maybe my dog could be their voice. He could represent the cruelty that animals endure at the hands of humans, and the cruelty we inflict upon ourselves by staying chained to our own unconscious ways of thinking.”
Introduced about a year after the strip debuted in 1994, Guard Dog was tethered to a stake in his owner’s yard ever since, a symbol of the cruelty of dog chaining. McDonnell said fans of the strip constantly asked for the dog to be freed, while animal welfare groups would ask him to keep the dog tethered — as a way to bring attention to the dangers of animal neglect. The book will not only include an introduction by McDonnell, but also one by Rob and Marisol Thomas, co-founders of the Sidewalk Angels Foundation. (You might know Rob as the lead singer of Matchbox 20).
Here’s a look at some of the strips being collected in the book:
Breaking the Chain: The Guard Dog Story arrives in stores next Tuesday.