Book Review: Two Dog Books
I heard about this book at Starbucks written by a dog. I ‘ve often wondered at my dog and what he might be thinking, so I used a gift certificate to buy “The Art of Racing in the Rain” by Garth Stein. I was not disappointed and have recommended the book to others. Enzo is a yellow lab whose master is Denny Swift a formula one race car driver. The only reason Enzo can’t speak is his tongue is too long to adequately form words, but we sure know what he’s thinking.
There’s this delightful scene where Enzo shares his feelings about crows. He does not like them and crows are crafty and would lead him away from the house leaving the rest of the crows to have their way with the garbage which he protects. One day Denny left a large grocery bag of his excrement on the porch and the crows thought it was food. Enzo barked at the crows from inside the house to make it seem like it was a grocery bag forgotten on the porch. The crows swooped in, took off with the bag, tore it apart and sunk their beaks in. They very quickly discovered it was Enzo’s shit.
Oh, the looks on their faces! The stunned silence. The indignation! The shaking of heads, and then they flew off en masses to the neighbor up the street with the dribbling fountain so they could wash their beaks.
Enzo loves racing. He watches Denny’s races and loves to stick his head out the car window. Oh, if he could just onece be in Denny’s racecar, flying through the turns.
After finishing the book, I went to Ralph the dog of ours and spoke to him, one human to another, and said I would listen more carefully to what he was trying to say. I would understand he could talk, if it were not for his tongue.
When I mentioned Enzo to others, invariably I was asked if I had read “Marley & Me” by John Grogan. I had not. Marley is written about from the author’s perspective and is the life long adventure living with a yellow lab mix that is absolutely a wild dog. When the author has the pick of the litter he chooses the most active dog, a male.
One of the males seemed particularly smitten with us. He was the goofiest of the group and charged into us, somersaulting into our laps and clawing his way up our shirts to lick our faces.. He gnawed on our fingers with surprisingly sharp teeth and stomped clumsy circles around us on giant tawny paws that were out of proportion to the rest of his body.
Marley never changes. He was always the wild dog, but a dog that wormed his way into your heart.
I couldn’t put the book down , waiting for Marley to show that he had learned to be a gentleman.
Both books can be purchased from Amazon through this blog.
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