"george sand had a horse, by a delicious coincidence named colette; christina rossetti had a wombat; colette had all those cats; virginia woolf was positively dotty, as her unpublished papers will reveal, about all sorts of animal creatures. but it is their dogs who will serve the purpose best - elizabeth barrett's spaniel named flush; emily dickinson's "dog as large as myself," as she coyly wrote thomas higginson, "that my father bought me"; and keeper, that ferocious canine without whose company emily bronte would not stalk the moors. with their rough, shaggy coats, their deep, senseless voices, their stupid affection, and their dirty habits, surely dogs supplied the want for all that is precious in masculinity to literary spinsters."

(ellen moers - literary women)