How to Walk a Dog
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- $11.99
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
'This wryly affectionate portrait of dogs and their people is a tail-thumpingly delightful read.' Jane Clifton
'So charming and funny and sincere - this is dog lit at its best.' Steve Braunias
'Mike White, for decades one of the country's most persuasive journalists, makes a case here as irrefutable as it is moving: throw a stick, make a dog happy, be a better person. He has convinced me.' Vincent O'Sullivan
Mike White began walking his SPCA-rescue huntaway, Cooper, at Wellington's dog parks ten years ago, and since then has become part of a remarkable community of people and their pets.
Written with wit, wisdom and heartbreaking poignancy, How to Walk a Dog is a story anyone who has ever owned or loved a dog will relate to. You will laugh, you will cry, and you will learn some of the secrets of living with a dog.
Illustrated with drawings from acclaimed cartoonist Sharon Murdoch.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Journalist White (Who Killed Scott Guy?) affectionately chronicles his daily visits to the local dog park with his rescue farm dog, Cooper. His vivid descriptions of the dogs, and of their owners, will bring nods of recognition from other dog lovers. So will a key observation about the park that White frequently knew the names of dogs long before he was on a first-name basis with their owners. These include Swedish transplant Barbro, the park's unofficial mayor, whom White often observes taking early morning phone calls while Harry, her "ruffian of a cairn terrier," frolics nearby; and Kirsty, who, with her mini schnauzer, Barney, finds emotional and practical support among fellow pet owners as a series of tragedies befall her family. Inevitably, there are the heart-wrenching stories about the deaths of beloved dogs; few will be able to read about Jazz's or Gyp's final days without shedding a tear. Testifying to the truth of John Steinbeck's declaration that a "dog... is a bond between strangers," White's book will delight pet lovers.
