A cause for pause

The book 'My Dog Tulip' was bad enough, and now they’ve made it into a movie.

I read almost everything my friend the book critic Katherine Powers tells me to. So when she ordered me to read J.R. Ackerley’s cult novel "My Dog Tulip" several years ago, I did. I hated it from the get-go. If I read 30 pages, it was only to gather ammunition with which to revile her. Perhaps I should have read the review she wrote when "Tulip," written in 1956, was first re-released in 1999. (It is being re-released again this month.) She called it the "[most] preeminently disgusting of all great dog books."

It is indeed preeminently disgusting. The first half is filled with graphic descriptions of the German shepherd’s bathroom habits. "Meaningless filth about dogs," Dame Edith Sitwell wrote in 1956. The second half of the book is devoted to Tulip’s sexual encounters, in which Ackerley — a middle-age Brit bachelor then working for the BBC in London — enthusiastically participates. So imagine my surprise to learn that a movie version of "My Dog Tulip," replete with pee and poop and plenty of X-rated doggie hook-ups, is coming to theaters next month.

"Tulip" is an 82-minute long film, beautifully animated by the Czech director Paul Fierlinger and his wife, Sandra, a painter. Christopher Plummer voices the character of Ackerley, the narrator, and the late Lynn Redgrave, in her final movie appearance, also figures in the cast along with Isabella Rossellini. A while back, I spoke with producer Norman Twain, who admitted that his movie aimed for a "mature audience, and members of dog society."

Twain sent me the movie, and I invited two card-carrying members of dog society to my house to watch it: Monica Collins, creator of the syndicated column "Ask Dog Lady," and Rob Nager, owner of Needham-based Decadent Dog, a "premium canine care" service, and winner of the 2008 Pet Sitter of the Year award bestowed by Pet Sitters International. Collins is the parent of Shorty, a West Highland terrier, and Nager, by wild coincidence, owns Molly, the sister of my Airedale, Nikka.

Following the book, the first half of the movie details Ackerley’s odd fascination with Tulip’s toilet technique, in the days before pooper scoopers and curbing your dog. "Omigosh, they are showing this?" was Collins’s reaction to the first of many bathroom scenes. "Rather scatological," was Nager’s disapproving comment.

Collins particularly liked this line: "Dogs read the world through their noses and write their history in urine." In the book, Ackerley elaborates that urine is "a highly complex source of social information; it is a language, a code, by means of which [dogs] not only express their feelings and emotions, but communicate with and appraise each other."

Then came Ackerley’s many attempts to find Tulip a husband, as he put it. Prude that I am, I found Ackerley’s physical interventions in Tulip’s sex life quite ghoulish. For the record, Nikka watched the movie with us, but seemed more interested in the Simply Fido certified organic chew toy that Nager brought her than in the panting and coupling on the screen.

So — paws up or down? "It’s odd that it’s an animated feature, because this could never be compared with a Disney movie," Nager said. He has about 400 clients. Would he recommend the movie, or mention it on his website? "I could recommend it because it’s different," he replied cautiously. "Ackerley treats Tulip as if she were his daughter, and he seems fascinated by her bodily functions."

"It both repelled and fascinated me," Collins said. "It’s the most unusual dog movie ever made. The final scene, where the humans are leading other around on leashes, reminds us of the animals we all are."

For the record, Bark magazine ("The Voice of the Dog") loved the movie, praising Fierlinger’s "brilliant" adaptation of the Ackerley novel. In a lengthy interview, Fierlinger told Bark that he wanted "Tulip" to be "the opposite of ‘101 Dalmatians.’ " Mission accomplished!

Fierlinger explained that about half of "Tulip’s" readers hate the book, and half love it. "I assume the same thing will happen to the movie," he said. "If I had picked another book we could perhaps have had an easier time finding theatrical distribution." Just a few days ago, he landed a Boston booking: "Tulip" will be at the Landmark Kendall Square starting Oct. 15.

Alex Beam is a Globe columnist. His e-dress is beam@globe.com