Throughout the year that Jack spends in Miss Stretchberry’s classroom, his confidence and pride in his own work and abilities grows exponentially. This is something that Love That Dog attributes both to Miss Stretchberry’s unwavering support and to the fact that Jack finds something (poetry, specifically the work of Walter Dean Myers) to be passionate about and work to emulate. It’s not until Miss Stretchberry begins introducing poets whose poems resonate more with Jack that he starts to get excited about poetry. It’s hard, he argues, to muster much enthusiasm about descriptions of a boring red wheelbarrow or a man sitting for questionable reasons in a snowy wood. It’s much easier to get excited about a poem describing a recognizably noisy city, or a beloved dog, or one about an apple that is shaped like an apple. When Jack sees that poetry can describe his lived experience or entertain, rather than just portray a lifestyle that Jack knows nothing about, he grows interested in writing his own poems and believes that he’s capable of doing so. Further, the novel traces Jack’s growing pride in his own work: he initially refuses to let Miss Stretchberry type his poems at all, then lets her type them but without attributing them to him, and finally lets her attribute his poems to him. It’s nice, Jack realizes, to have his classmates praise his work—it makes him feel like writing poetry is something he’s actually good at and should keep doing. And ultimately, Jack develops enough confidence and passion for poetry to write to the poet Walter Dean Myers, inviting him to come speak to his class. Confidence and passion, this suggests, can make a person more willing to try new, scary things, like writing to a stranger and asking a favor.
Jack’s growing confidence also has subtle—but nevertheless important—impacts on his classmates. At one point, he tells Miss Stretchberry that he really likes one of his classmate’s poems. But he’s sad that his classmate was unwilling to put their name on the poem, perhaps because they’re nervous the poem isn’t good. He asks Miss Stretchberry to please tell the student that he likes the poem and thinks it’s really good, thereby helping another budding writer gain confidence. And this ripple effect, the novel suggests, is one of the most valuable consequences of gaining confidence in one’s own abilities: it allows a person to then help others do the same.
Related Themes from Other Texts
Confidence, Passion, and Pride ThemeTracker
Confidence, Passion, and Pride Quotes in Love That Dog
I don’t understand
the poem about
the red wheelbarrow
and the white chickens
and why so much
depends upon
them.
If that is a poem
about the red wheelbarrow
and the white chickens
then any words
can be a poem.
You’ve just got to
make
short
lines.
I am sorry to say
I did not really understand
the tiger tiger burning bright poem
but at least it sounded good
in my ears.
They look nice
typed up like that
on blue paper
on a yellow board.
(But still don’t tell anyone
who wrote them, okay?)
and especially I liked the dog
in the dog poem
because that’s just how
my yellow dog
used to lie down,
with his tongue all limp
and his chin
between
his paws
and how he’d sometimes
chomp at a fly
and then sleep
in his loose skin,
just like that poet
Miss Valerie Worth
says,
in her small
dog poem.
I guess it does
look like a poem
when you see it
typed up
like that.
But I think maybe
it would look better
if there was more space
between the lines.
Like how I wrote it
the first time.
And you said that
Mr. Robert Frost
who wrote
about the pasture
was also the one
who wrote about
those snowy woods
and the miles to go
before he sleeps—
well!
I think Mr. Robert Frost
has a little
too
much
time
on his
hands.
And maybe
that’s the same thing
that happened with
Mr. Robert Frost.
Maybe he was just
making pictures with words
about the snowy woods
and the pasture—
and his teacher
typed them up
and they looked like poems
so people thought
they were poems.
Like how you did
with the blue-car things
and reading-the-small-poems thing.
Yes
you can type up
what I wrote
about my yellow dog
but leave off the part
about the other dogs
getting killed dead
because that’s too sad.
And don’t put
my name
on it
please.
And maybe
it would look good
on yellow paper.
And maybe
the title
should be
YOU COME TOO.
At both ends
of our street
are yellow signs
that say
Caution! Children at Play!
but sometimes
the cars
pay no attention
and speed down
the road
as if
they are in a BIG hurry
with many miles to go
before they sleep.
That was so great
those poems you showed us
where the words
make the shape
of the thing
that the poem
is about—
like the one about an apple
that was shaped like an apple
and the one about the house
that was shaped like a house.
My brain was pop-pop-popping
when I was looking at those poems.
I never knew a poet person
could do that funny
kind of thing.
But I want to know
who is the
anonymous poet
in our class
who wrote that
and why didn’t
he
or
she
want to put
his or her name
on it?
Was it like me
when I didn’t think
my words
were
poems?
Maybe you will tell
the anonymous tree poet
that his or her tree poem
is really
a poem
really really
and a good poem, too.
I sure liked that poem
by Mr. Walter Dean Myers
called
“Love That Boy.”
Because of two reasons I liked it:
One is because
my dad calls me
in the morning
just like that.
He calls
Hey there, son!
And also because
when I had my
yellow dog
I loved that dog
and I would call him
like this—
I’d say—
Hey there, Sky!
(His name was Sky.)
Yes, you can type up
what I wrote about
my dog Sky
but don’t type up
that other secret one
I wrote—
the one all folded up
in the envelope
with tape on it.
That one uses too many of
Mr. Walter Dean Myers’s
words
and maybe
Mr. Walter Dean Myers
would get mad
about that.
And thank you
for typing up
my secret poem
the one that uses
so many of
Mr. Walter Dean Myers’s
words
and I like what
you put
at the top:
Inspired by Walter Dean Myers.
I don’t agree
that Mr. Walter Dean Myers
might like to hear
from a boy
who likes his poems.
I think Mr. Walter Dean Myers
would like to hear
from a teacher
who uses big words
and knows how
to spell
and
to type.
Maybe you could
show me
how to use
the computer
and then
I could type up
my own words?
And I saw Sky
going after the ball
wag-wag-wagging
his tail
and I called him
“Sky! Sky!”
and he turned his
head
but it was too late
because the
blue car blue car
splattered with mud
hit Sky
thud thud thud
and kept on going
in such a hurry
so fast
so many miles to go
it couldn’t even stop
The bulletin board
looks like it’s
blooming words
with everybody’s poems
up there
on all those
colored sheets of paper
yellow blue pink red green.
And the bookcase
looks like it’s
sprouting books
all of them by
Mr. Walter Dean Myers
looking back at us
[...]
And it was nice of you
to read all of our poems
on the bulletin board
and I hope it didn’t
make you
too sad
when you read the one
about my dog Sky
getting smooshed in the road.
LOVE THAT DOG
(Inspired by Walter Dean Myers)
By Jack
Love that dog,
like a bird loves to fly
I said I love that dog
like a bird loves to fly
Love to call him in the morning
love to call him
“Hey there, Sky!”
