The Plague Dogs
First edition cover from 1977
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| Author | Richard Adams |
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| Cover artist | A. Wainwright |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Language | English |
| Genre | Fantasy novel |
| Publisher | Allan Lane |
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Publication date
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22 September 1977 |
| Media type | Print (hardback & paperback) |
| Pages | 461 pp (hardback edition) |
| ISBN | (hardback edition) |
| OCLC | 3496427 |
| 823/.9/14 | |
| LC Class | PZ4.A2163 Pl PR6051.D345 |
The Plague Dogs is the third novel by Richard Adams, author of Watership Down, about two dogs who escape an animal testing facility and are subsequently pursued by both the government and the media. It was first published in 1977, and features a few location maps drawn by Alfred Wainwright, a fellwalker and author. The conclusion of the book involves two real-life characters, Adams' long-time friend Ronald Lockley, and the world-famous naturalist Sir Peter Scott. Having seen a manuscript, both men readily agreed to be identified with the characters and opinions that Adams had attributed to them, as is shown in Adams' preface to the book.
This book tells of the escape of two dogs, Rowf and Snitter, from a government research station in the Lake District in England, where they had been horribly mistreated. They live on their own with help from a red fox, or "tod", who speaks to them in a Geordie dialect. After the starving dogs attack some sheep on the fells, they are reported as ferocious man-eating monsters by a journalist. A great dog hunt follows, which is later intensified with the fear that the dogs could be carriers of a dangerous bioweapon, such as the bubonic plague.
Adams based the book's research station, ARSE (an acronym for Animal Research, Scientific and Experimental, and British slang for ), on the remote hill farm of Lawson Park, now run as an artist residency by the contemporary art organisation Grizedale Arts.
A shaggy, large black mongrel, born in the laboratory where inhumane experiments were performed on him and his companion, Snitter. Snitter escapes with Rowf, only to find that living in the great outdoors is quite challenging. Rowf is a downtrodden fellow, quite cynical and increasingly feral in his ways, since he has had a hard life and never met a decent human. As a result of the experimentation, he has gained an abnormal fear of water. Toward the end of his travels, his time with Snitter and his encounter with real-life naturalist Peter Scott has him believing humankind may not be irredeemably bad.
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