Dog Statues
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They are frozen in time and sometimes deceptively real. Perpetuated in stone or bronze, looking over water, streets, parks or squares, dog statues can be found all over the world.
by Ria Hörter
Frisbee Dog and The Leash
Middlebury, Vt., a village chartered in 1761 and listed on the National Register of Historic Places, is home to Middlebury College, founded in 1800. Facing the college’s central quadrangle is Munroe Hall, a neo-Georgian classroom and office building executed in Weybridge limestone in 1941. In 1989, a bronze sculpture of a dog catching a Frisbee was erected on the quad in front of Munroe Hall.
Strikingly Large Feet
The dog’s athletic body is supported on one leg as he reaches his neck as far as possible to catch the Frisbee. Most striking are the short tail, elongated hind legs, slender body, and large feet with long nails and dewclaws. In order to convey action and speed, the artist manipulated the body proportions.
The inscription, “Frisbee A Gift to Middlebury College from Gary Merrill” runs around the rim on the underside of the disc. Inscribed on the toe pads of the raised rear paw are the names of Merrill’s grandsons, Matthew and Cameron.
The History Behind the Frisbee
Throwing a disc in a contest dates to the ancient Olympic games, which began in 776 BC. More than 25 years after Frisbee Dog was placed in Middlebury, there are still three different versions of the story behind the statue.
The first commemorates the tradition that the Frisbee was invented in the 1950s by a group of Middlebury students playing with thin metal pie plates.
In the second version, five Middlebury College students were the inventors when they tossed empty Frisbie Pie Co. (Bridgeport, Conn.) plates to each other while on an autumn 1939 road trip to a fraternity convention in Nebraska.
The Frisbie Pie Co. supplied many shops and restaurants in Connecticut, but also Yale University. The third version is that three Yale Law School students invented the game of throwing saucer-shaped discs back and forth between players. This version was apparently confirmed by Mrs. Frisbie herself. Believe it or not, in Webster’s New World Dictionary, she confusingly asserted that “Mother Frisbie’s cookie jars were originally used for the game by Princeton students.” Word Origins added: “…as substitutes for handballs.”
You Know the Rest
Under the headline “Modern Toys Rise To New Heights,” South Florida’s Sun Sentinel of September 1986 reported: “But the true historian will point out that Frisbees actually go back to the year 1871 when the Frisbie Pie Co. opened in Connecticut. Over the years, those 5 cent pies were not so famous among college students as they were for their tins. You could throw them.”
In 1948, Californian Fred Morrison, himself a veteran thrower of pie tins and paint can lids, took notice. After tinkering with metal, then plastic discs, he came up with Morrison`s Flyin` Saucer in 1951. It later became the Pluto Platter – a fitting toy for a nation struck with UFOs.
But the kids persisted in calling them ‘frisbies.’ In 1957, the company renamed the toy the Frisbee. You know the rest.”
In the U.S., the Pluto Platter led to a multimillion-dollar business. It became the Flying Saucer, then the Sailing Satellite. In 1964, its maker, the Wham-O Manufacturing Co. in California, produced the first professional models of the Frisbee, according to The Dispatch, August 1977.
Success has many fathers, and so has the Frisbee. Who deserves the credit for the Frisbee and its role in dog sport? Students from Middlebury, Princeton or Yale? The Frisbie Pie Co. or the Wham-O Manufacturing Co.?
A Second Dog
There is a second dog statue made by the same sculptor, on Town Square in Rutland, VT. It was unveiled in 1984 on a tiny downtown park, as a gift from the artist to the city. The Leash depicts a life-size dog in bronze straining against an invisible leash tethering him to a parking meter. According to the Rutland Herald (June 2009), “The absence of the leash incorporates the sculptor’s ironic style. The parking meter represented the restraints of time while the dog was the beast who longed for freedom.”
Note the large, arched feet, the elegant body and long tail. Again, it’s not possible to recognize a breed, but it is certainly the same type of dog as in Middlebury.
In November 2011, the sculpture’s parking meter was stolen, but it was returned a few days later and The Leash was restored in May 2012.
The Artist
Frisbee Dog commemorates a popular dog sport. I don’t think the sculptor had a particular breed in mind when he created Frisbee Dog and The Leash. Drop ears and a short or long tail is too little information, even for dog fanciers.
The artist, Patrick Villiers Farrow (1942-2009), was born in Los Angeles, the son of actress Maureen O’Sullivan and writer/director John Villiers Farrow, and brother of actress Mia Farrow. After some small roles in movies and television series, he moved to Vermont in 1964. A Fellow in the National Sculpture Society, Farrow won numerous awards and is represented in public and private collections worldwide. In 1993, he bought a historic church in Castleton, VT, and turned it into a home, studio and gallery for himself and his wife.
In June 2009, the talented and complicated artist died from a self-inflicted gun-shot wound. Friends and admirers, and citizens of Castleton and Rutland paid tribute by laying flowers on The Leash.
Short URL: http://caninechronicle.com/?p=82818
Posted by ralbee
on Jul 15 2015. Filed under Current Articles, Editorial, Featured.
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