Every dog is 'The Best Dog'
Nov. 4—"The Best Dog: Hilarious to Heartwarming Portraits of the Pups We Love" by Aliza Eliazarov with Edward Doty. Ten Speed Press, 240 pages, $25.
L ike a lot of folks, Aliza Eliazarov and Ed Doty adopted a puppy during the pandemic, and promptly fell in love with the fluffy creature they named Ducky.
The couple's adventures in dog parenting helped inspire their new book, which celebrates all the dogs we know and love. "The Best Dog" features poignant, funny and endearing photos of these creatures who inhabit our homes and our hearts.
Eliazarov is the manager of the humane education department at the SPCA in Stratham. She is the former lead photographer at BarkBox and cover story photographer for Modern Farmer magazine.
Dogs are special, she said. "The human-dog bond is really unique and really beautiful," she said.
That beauty shines through in "The Best Dog."
Whiskey, a sightless Pomeranian, tips his head to meet the caress of a brush; Boone the Newfoundland leans over a front porch railing like a welcoming neighbor; Rosie the Italian greyhound dances daintily on her hind legs and winks at the camera.
Eliazarov and Doty met in 2009 while both were attending the International Center of Photography in New York City. They've been together for 14 years, and married for eight.
Doty assists his wife on every photo shoot, and they co-write and co-produce their books. "Aliza always holds the camera and I do my best to do whatever is necessary to put her in the best position to take the most beautiful picture," Doty said.
Their first collaboration was on the 2020 book, "On the Farm," featuring Eliazarov's portraits of the "heritage and heralded" animals who live and work on farmsteads.
That book, of course, included working dogs, Eliazarov said.
"The heart of any farm is their farm dog," she said. "They might be very proud of their heritage animals, but they love their dogs."
After that project, Eliazarov and Doty knew they wanted their next book to focus on dogs. The idea crystallized during the pandemic for the couple, who moved to Kittery, Maine, in the summer of 2021.
"It was a time when for some people, their dog was all they had," Doty said. "In lockdown, that was their only contact with another being, so it kind of amplified that significance in a very poignant way."
They wanted this project to take a different approach, "shifting the focus to see it more around personality and companionship," he said. "Dogs were a great subject for focusing on that."
So Eliazarov photographed Ivy — a breeding female golden retriever surrendered to a rescue group — engulfed in puppies, her face revealing the patience — and weariness — of moms everywhere.
Iggy Pup, a Catahoula leopard dog with a "lust for life," drapes languidly on a velveteen couch. Kieran, an elegant Great Dane who lives with a famous interior designer in Washington, D.C., reclines on a white coverlet.
To find canine subjects to photograph, the couple put out a call on social media. They wanted to include compelling stories and unusual breeds.
But pandemic restrictions — and outbreaks — frequently confounded their travel plans. So they often focused right in their own Seacoast area.
They were stunned at the variety of rare breeds they found: a Nigerian street dog named Wahala, a Chinese village dog called Rigby and a Guam boonie dog named Tasi.
Eliazarov also made it a point to include dogs who had come into rescue and found their forever homes and families.
She also contacted Hancock naturalist and author Sy Montgomery and her husband, writer Howard Mansfield, to ask if she could photograph their dog, Thurber. "She said, 'Come over,'" Eliazarov said.
Thurber is "a ball-obsessed border collie," with an appreciation for classical music, Eliazarov said. "The oboe came on and he started singing," she said.
Their own dog, Ducky, a border collie mix who loves snow, the beach, people and other dogs, also helped them find other subjects to photograph, she said. "Some of Ducky's best friends are in the book," she said.
"Then it became friends of friends," she said. "The dogs we photographed, their people would tell us about other dogs."
Each photo session was a collaborative effort between photographer and subject, Eliazarov said. "The dog's safety and comfort is always paramount to me," she said. "If the dog felt uncomfortable or nervous, then the shoot was over."
She took hundreds of photos for every one that made it into the book, trying to capture each dog's essence. "There's this moment of connection between myself and my subject, and I feel it," she said.
The name of the new book was obvious from the start, Eliazarov said. "People would approach us: 'You have to photograph my dog. I have the best dog.'"
"It's true," she said. "Everybody does have the best dog — for them."
"The Best Dog" is dedicated to Ducky, their own best dog. "He doesn't know it yet because he can't read ... yet," Eliazarov said. "That's the next thing we have to teach him."
Eliazarov hopes the book will have a broad appeal — "everyone who wants a dog, loves a dog, has a dog," she said. "If you hate dogs, it's not for you."
"It might turn you around, though," her husband added.
"What I think people will love about this book is not only are there beautiful portraits but there are also really touching stories and funny stories," Eliazarov said. "So that even if the reader's dog isn't in this book, they will see their dogs in the stories and in the portraits."
"They could always just glue their dog's photo on the last page," she suggested.