The problem with books about dogs...
Good Dog, Stay, Anna Quindlen
Extremely short nonfiction, halfway between a memoir of life with a dog and an essay. Sweet and funny but, in the way of all such books, I know how it ends. It always, always, always ends with the elderly dog in the writer's arms while the doc puts in the needle, and it always ends with some reflection about care and mortality and love, and it always ends with me sobbing and feeling drained and wrung-out, and even though we reach that point honestly (the dog dies all too soon is a fact of life, not an unfair authorial manipulation), I always sort of wish I hadn't put myself through that again. Such is the way of books about dogs.
Extremely short nonfiction, halfway between a memoir of life with a dog and an essay. Sweet and funny but, in the way of all such books, I know how it ends. It always, always, always ends with the elderly dog in the writer's arms while the doc puts in the needle, and it always ends with some reflection about care and mortality and love, and it always ends with me sobbing and feeling drained and wrung-out, and even though we reach that point honestly (the dog dies all too soon is a fact of life, not an unfair authorial manipulation), I always sort of wish I hadn't put myself through that again. Such is the way of books about dogs.