two gentlemen (?) of verona

photo credit yale university art gallery.  (PD)

Here's the great American illustrator Edwin Austin Abbey with his take on Shakespeare:
"Launce and His Dog - Act IV, Scene IV, Two Gentlemen of Verona," a pen and ink work from 1891. I find his spindly, descriptive lines and attention to funny characterization typical of his time, and done with a nimble feel.  What a great face on that dog!

So what about a dog in Act IV Scene IV?  I went looking (I have not memorized Shakespeare, and I bet you haven't either).  Here's how the scene starts.

SCENE IV.
Enter LAUNCE, with his his Dog.

LAUNCE
When a man's servant shall play the cur with him,
look you, it goes hard: one that I brought up of a
puppy; one that I saved from drowning, when three or
four of his blind brothers and sisters went to it.
I have taught him, even as one would say precisely,
'thus I would teach a dog.' I was sent to deliver
him as a present to Mistress Silvia from my master;
and I came no sooner into the dining-chamber but he
steps me to her trencher and steals her capon's leg:
O, 'tis a foul thing when a cur cannot keep himself
in all companies!. . . 

The dog is called "Crab."  And here is a wacky take on this scene.