Okay, technically, the 2001 picture book classic Walter the Farting Dog is not directly about dirty dogs, like Harry the Dirty Dog…but farts are definitely filth adjacent, so here we are.
William Kotzwinkle and Glenn Murray’s story has a very simple premise: two kids adopt a dog from the dog pound that no one else wants him. They love him, but their mother points out that he stinks, and has them give him a bath.
They do…and Walter farts during the bath. The mother suggests he’s nervous.
He’s not. He’s flatulent. He is, as the title declares, a farting dog.
He farts everywhere and all the time.
They take him to the vet, who prescribes a change in diet.
It doesn’t help, no matter what they feed him (and they try a lot of foods).
Finally, the kids’ father has had enough, and says Walter has to go back to the pound.
Walter doesn’t want to go, and decides to hold his farts in. He also eats an entire bag of “low-fart dog biscuits,” hoping they’ll help.
They don’t. He ends up on the couch, holding in a “giant gas bubble.” That’s where he is when the burglars sneak into the house. They tie his snout shut, and rob the house. Walter is writhing in pain from the gas…and then lets it all out, gassing the thieves, who stumble out of the house and into the arms of the police.
When the family learns Walter saved the day, they celebrate Walter and keep him forever.
Audrey Colman has a field day with the illustrations for all of this. Walter looks genuinely abashed when he farts, and afraid when threatened with a return to the pound–and the many images of farts are, forgive me, a gas. We get bubbles in the bath, clouds of what looks like mustard gas, and, fairly often, a strangely targeted cone of odor.
It is easy to see why this became a bestseller. It’s got potty humor, it’s got drama, and it’s got multiple reversals. It is a stinky roller coaster of a picture book.
