Bow wowed

The line to meet Mr. Winkle began forming two hours before his scheduled book-signing appearance. By 7:30 p.m., it had swelled to about 500 -- an orderly queue outside Barnes & Noble in Santa Monica, waiting as if for a dignitary of church or state.

But Mr. Winkle is a dog. A 5-pound dog (about the size of a large squirrel), with fluffy apricot-colored hair, bright-as-glass button eyes, a koala bear’s ears and a perfectly rounded little cherry-red tongue that peeks from one side of his mouth as if it had been sewn in place for optimum adorable effect.

The truth is, Mr. Winkle looks as if he were created by some delightfully demented designer for one of those ancient European firms that make uniquely lovable yet dignified stuffed toys. In fact, the most frequent question asked by the 35 million people who’ve visited Mr. Winkle’s Web site (www.mrwinkle.com) in the last three years is, “Are you real?”

He is. And he is clearly one of a kind. One of what kind, even the experts are unable to say. Perhaps a bit of Pomeranian, a soupcon of poodle, a blend of two, three or 10 other miniature breeds, they believe. He is clearly a diverse dog of such mixed lineage that he stands -- at under a foot tall -- for no particular breed or class, which means he can stand for all of them.

But he is not Disneyesque. If comparisons must be made, he is more Chaplinesque, says Lara Jo Regan, the dog’s constant companion, manager, photographer and biographer. She has turned Mr. Winkle into an underground industry, a cult canine, a poster pooch featured in costumes -- from angel to bumble bee and ballerina -- on Mr. Winkle calendars, greeting cards, T-shirts, magnets, mugs and books.

The latest, “A Winkle in Time” (Random House), is the pair’s third and most ambitious collaboration in the Mr. Winkle series. It is a salute to the “underdogs of history” and features Mr. Winkle in historically accurate costumes and settings that represent an Irish monk, an ancient African monarch, a Canadian racehorse and a French sculptor, among others. All those depicted have made great contributions but have been underappreciated by historians, Regan says. She wants her dressed-up dog (who was also underappreciated until she found him, half dead, beside a railroad track) to help right that wrong.

A Mr. Winkle movie is also in its post-production phase. Created and directed by Regan, it’s filmed in grainy, soft-focus color to simulate an old silent film, with titles instead of dialogue -- and lots of music. Mr. Winkle plays a Chaplin-like hobo dog who stumbles into an old-time circus traveling in covered wagons from town to town. His hilarious yet poignant efforts to join the troupe, and to help those in it who are being mistreated, form the plot. “It’s a very personal project,” Regan says. “It’s old-fashioned, yet timeless. It’s for grown-ups and kids.”

And so is Mr. Winkle, as was evident at the Barnes & Noble event. In line, waiting for Winkle to “pawtograph” books, were representatives of every age range. Regan sat at a table on which she had placed Winkle, in an igloo-shaped fabric hut, with only his head available for petting. He is so extraordinarily fragile-looking that most people simply smiled at him or touched him with one or two fingers.

Sarah Mandell, 12, visiting from Sedona, Ariz., said she’d first seen Mr. Winkle on greeting cards, then checked out his Web site and “fell head over heels in love.” Senior citizen Mikie Fujimura of Monterey Park clutched a stuffed likeness of Mr. Winkle as she stepped up to meet him. Video game marketer James Tuverson waited with his wife, a teacher, and his 7-year-old daughter. “At first, I didn’t believe he was real. I thought it was a joke. Or a stuffed toy. Then I went on the Web site -- and here we all are. He’s even better in person than in his pictures.”

Ronald Reagan’s daughter, Patti Davis, waited almost two hours for a signed book. She was assembling a birthday package for her mother, Nancy, and “I wanted Mr. Winkle to be a part of it,” she said.

Cynics might say the Mr. Winkle phenomenon is just another case of girl meets dog, girl photographs dog, girl gets rich. What’s in it for the dog?

Cynics would be wrong. Regan, 40, a Sandra Bullock look-alike, didn’t need Winkle in her life to win fame and fortune. She had done that all on her own. Before Winkle, she says, “I was living the life I’d always dreamed of.” She was a photojournalist who’d won a reputation -- and major awards -- for documenting the human condition for such magazines as Time, Newsweek and Life. She won the World Press Photo of the Year award for 2000 for an image in her series called “The Uncounted,” which depicts the lives of Americans so poor that they are never found and counted by the U.S. Census Bureau. She was also a respected celebrity portraitist.

To go from all that to working exclusively with a little dressed-up dog was an unimaginable leap, she admits. And by no means did she perceive it as a career enhancer. But she felt she had no choice. She was in love.

Regan was driving in an industrial part of Bakersfield one night six years ago on assignment when she spotted something small, moving unsteadily in the glare of her headlights. She found a filthy, abused, sick and injured miniature dog. She put it in her car and drove home.

Her boyfriend said it looked “demonic” and wanted no part of it. She told him the dog was “an angel with a dirty face,” and she wanted to care for it. “That’s basically the reason we eventually broke up,” she says of her ex. “I couldn’t be with someone who had such a different view of life.”

A veterinarian found scrapes, bruises, multiple infections, a chipped skull -- and pronounced the dog near death. Regan decided to help the little creature, who had cleaned up nicely and who never took his eyes off her. “That eye contact means everything to him,” she says. It was -- and still is -- as if Mr. Winkle gets all the nourishment he needs from keeping Regan in his sight. In truth, she says, he seems to feel no need to eat. She spends at least an hour a day hand-feeding him a special health food diet to ensure he maintains his weight. (At the book signing, Regan placed Mr. Winkle’s igloo at an angle, so that while the crowd looked at him, he could look at Regan. The two were eye-locked throughout the evening.)

As he healed, he limped around after her in the Los Feliz apartment where the pair still lives. He had panic attacks if she so much as left the room without him. “He has severe abandonment issues,” she says. So she took him everywhere. Restaurants, movies, assignments, dates. “He sits in his little case, makes no noise, no one even knows he’s there,” she says. When she’d take him out of his carrying case, he had what she calls “the most amazing effect on people. He brought out their most creative, funny sides. He seemed to fill them with wonder, to make everyone happy just by meeting him. I started keeping a record” of how they reacted.

She also began taking pictures of this “otherworldly being” who’d come into her life, who is so comical yet tragic. “He is so vulnerable, so fragile and delicate.” To her, Mr. Winkle represents nature and all creatures in it who will survive if humans take the trouble to care. She decided to share that with the world.

Mr. Winkle slowly became an underground icon on the Internet. “Hello Mr. Winkle,” wrote one little girl. “I know how busy you are, but if you just take the time to write a reply, I will be ready to die....I have cancer. I lost my hair because of it. My family had to make me live in a hospital. I am on the [Make-a-Wish] program, and if you’d please write back, it would mean the world to me.” Regan and Mr. Winkle made plans for a surprise in-person visit, but the child died while they were on their way.

“Hello, Mr. Winkle. I think you are really a dandelion, and when the breeze blows soft and gentle and quiet, you spread your seeds of love and fun and sweetness all through the air,” a 7-year-old wrote.

Grown-ups also e-mailed -- from Russia, France, Japan. Tales poured in of suicides averted, lives enhanced, sadness eased, -- all because of finding Mr. Winkle. He was invited onto the “Today” show, Rosie O’Donnell’s talk show and even made a cameo appearance on “Sex and the City,” where his book signing drew a bigger crowd than Carrie Bradshaw’s.

So has he made her rich? Regan laughs, waves her arm around the apartment. It is filled with photos, vintage furniture that might have come from flea markets and a certain patina of shabbiness. “I made a lot of financial mistakes in the beginning, not knowing the optimal way to achieve what I wanted. It was very, very costly.” It was also a sometimes painful course in the vicissitudes of mass marketing. A deal with Mattel was struck, for example, but then fell apart for reasons she declines to discuss. The stuffed, plush Mr. Winkle toys are now made by Monogram and sold only on her Web site.

But she doesn’t regret a moment of it.

“It’s like living in a dream,” she says. “I found a dog by the side of the road, and my life changed totally. He is not of this world. He’s not something you actually think could exist. It’s like being the keeper of a magical elf. It’s a huge responsibility and I feel pressure to do it justice.”

She feels that through her work with him she will find a new sense of personal accomplishment and peace. And, she says, her new boyfriend totally agrees.