- This article is about the fictional canine character; see also other uses of buck.
Buck, a fictional dog, is the main character in the novel The Call of the Wild by Jack London. His mother was a Scots Shepherd; his father was a Saint Bernard; and Buck himself is a strong, intelligent dog weighing about 140 pounds. 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, a dishonest gardener steals Buck from from a sunny Santa Clara estate, and sells him to meet the demand for sled dogs during the Klondike Gold Rush. Buck passes abruptly from a soft, easy life to a brutal existence in the far North. He adapts, survives, and eventually thrives in his harsh new environment. As the story progresses, Buck becomes more and more feral as he is passed from one owner to another, until he at last joins a pack of wolves.
References
- Marshall Bond's eulogy on Jack London Has an 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
