Buck (dog)

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This article is about the fictional canine character; see also other uses of buck.

Buck is a dog who is the main character in the novel and movie The Call of the Wild by Jack London. Apparently Buck's mother was a Scots Shepherd, and his father was a Saint Bernard.

Daniel Dyer (1997) writes:

Jack acknowledged in a letter to Klondike acquaintance Marshall Bond that he had based Buck on Bond's dog Jack, an animal that had much impressed London in the North. The dog was a mixed breed--St. Bernard and some kind of collie or shepherd. London said he selected the name Buck because it was "stronger" than Bright, another name he had considered.

In the book The Call of The Wild, Buck is kidnapped from a sunny home in Santa Clara, California and sold to meet the demand for sled dogs. As the story progresses, Buck becomes more and more feral, passed from one owner to another, gradually severing ties with human civilization until he at last joins a pack of wolves.

[edit] References

• Marshall Bond's eulogy on Jack London Has image of the Bonds' dog Jack, on whom the fictional Buck was based. The tent was one of four located just behind the vantage point of the photograph.[Richard Bond]
• Dyer, Daniel (1997), The Call of the Wild: Annotated and Illustrated," University of Oklahoma Press, ISBN 0-8061-2920-4