2007 books
36) Farley Mowat, The Dog Who Wouldn't Be, 1957 (RECOMMENDED BY voidampersand )
A portrait of Farley Mowat's family dog Mutt, who he owned as a young boy while growing up in 1930s Sakatchewan. Mowat puts across Mutt's eccentricities quite well, as Mutt discovers what he's either unexpectedly good or bad at, and Mowat's closeness to and amazement of his subject sometimes verges on the adulatory. But it's also a good anecdotal read, and the final chapter on Mutt's sudden death is particularly sad, and poignantly composed. Mowat also goes into his various encounters with other semi-domesticated wildlife, including owls, snakes and skunks, making this a good Canadian counterpart to Gerald Durrell's My Family and Other Animals.