The original concept for this book was to include 1000 dogs and one cat. But as the days grew longer in preparation, the number of dogs grew shorter and I managed to squeeze only 820 dogs (and a few cats for balance) into these 512 pages. Be assured, dear reader, that my collection of pooches over the past 50 years far exceeds a mere thousand. Starting with my first published Chihuahua, photographed in New York in 1946, to my last mongrel taken in Ayutthaya in 1998, I hope to have assembled a representative number and variety of man and woman's most enduring and loyal friends worldwide. (Elliot Erwitt).