According to biographical texts, Dr. Oswald “Ossey” Vinograd was a mix of black Russian terrier on his mother’s side and Turkish herding mutt on his father’s. They’d both immigrated to New York, raised their son in the Bronx. He’d gotten into Columbia and formed a chapter of the Young Animalists. He was an outspoken and charismatic activist. The end of his college years corresponded with the riots and strikes and protests that preceded Napoleon Herbert’s political fall. Vinograd had occupied administrative offices and sung resistance songs to protest pig domination. He had been arrested but quickly released. He went on to get a PhD, also from Columbia, in French animal consciousness. He married a fellow student, an Irish setter from the public health department; they had two puppies.

He got a tenure-track job right out of school. But though he had spent his whole life within the public and private education system of New York, he never let go of the self-image of outsider, a rebel. He wrote about unlearning and unteaching. He barked out lectures on the need for play and nonhierarchical structures within the academy. He received tenure at Hunter. He bought a classic six when the market was depressed. He wrote a book called Sacred Saliva: A History of Dog Violence and Healing in the New World. It caught on in the popular culture, and he became a fixture in a certain lecture circuit. He railed against austerity. He got a divorce and rented out his uptown property, then bought a little place in the East Village. Those were his bachelor days. He became chair of the department and sat on committees. He got remarried. His new wife was one of his grad students—he hadn’t meant to fall in love like that, but his colleagues were very understanding. His two children from his first marriage finished private school and moved on to Dartmouth and Skidmore. He invited members of the Grandjouan horse separatist movement to give a famous series of talks. He went on sabbatical to Tarragona and smoked catnip with Mineau Ritta. He and his new wife had a litter of three puppies and he made jokes about being an old dad. When the department suffered cuts, he rallied the faculty and bemoaned the decline of public discourse. He hired adjuncts and tried to lift their spirits—he knew what they were up against. He suffered through his son’s foray into rock and roll, then pills, then recovery. He wrote yet another book. He and his ex-wife helped their son buy a fixer-upper in a scruffy part of Brooklyn, saying the manual labor would do him good. He had dinners with the dean and the president of the university. He took on new grad students. He began to relax more after so many years of hard work.

“What do you think of your dissertation?” the professor asked his student.