Title: “Companions Real and Imagined”

Artist: Linda Harbison

Medium: Unspecified

Price: Contact National Purebred Dog Day to inquire about purchasing this piece. 

Painting Details: My first idea was to feature our local police dog, Tora. She is a German Shepherd who was imported from Germany. I had photographs from her handler of Tora performing bite work, but I thought doing a poster with just a bite scene would not generate the most positive PR for either purebred dogs or the police.

Then I got ambitious and decided to show one dog from each group as was suggested in the entry instructions. I included Tora taking down a bad guy as an example of the herding group. For the most part, I chose breeds I have either owned or known personally. I thought about the environments and cultures that had shaped those breeds. I made it all one color to help tie the various scenes together and added the red accent on the various trappings we humans have invented to train, restrain and identify our dogs.

Artist’s Thoughts: I was always drawn toward animals though I was never allowed to have a pet as a child in the 1970s. There were, however, a large number of stray dogs and cats in our neighborhood, and I made friends with them all. Several of the dogs would follow me to school. I first got interested in purebred dogs by checking out all of the dog books in the school library and trying to identify which breeds my stray friends belonged to. It did not take long to figure out few of them were purebred. Still, I loved trying to imagine which breeds might have contributed to each one’s makeup. To this day I am fascinated by the subject of canine genetics.

In the late 1980’s I went to work for Bill and Susan Knox at Copyright Pet Resort in Cookeville Tennessee. Bill trained Dobermans for Schutzhund while Susan showed Boston Terriers. I loved being around all the dog show people and listening in on all of their stories. I was not directly involved with much showing or competition myself. I probably would have gotten more involved if circumstances hadn’t forced me to move. #NPDDArt2017