Read a good dog book lately?

One of the first things I do when I enter a bookstore is to look at what new pet books there are. Force of habit. It has become that way because I know that the readers of Pet Life like to know what’s out there – so that they can share quality time with their favorite pet companions, right?

Marley & Me by John Grogan was the book I recently found. "It’s a good read. Very interesting for pet lovers, dog lovers in particular," said my favorite book reviewer at the bookstore I frequent.

"A very funny valentine . . . Marley &Me tenderly follows its subject from sunrise to sunset .. with hilarity and affection" read the review at the back cover by the New York Times. Of course, the book is a No.1 New York Times bestseller.

Sold.

The book is a rather straightforward story about how a newly married couple John Grogan and his wife Jenny started their married life together – they got a dog.

John, a newspaper columnist who works with the Philadelphia Inquirer got his first dog when he was 10 years old in 1967. It was a mongrel whom his father helped him pick. St. Shaun, as John lovingly remembers his first dog, was what John thought all dogs should be like.

Fast forward to January 1991 when John and Jenny were 15 months into their married life. It was Jenny who wanted to get a dog after she had "killed" the plant that John gave her. The couple had no kids and Jenny wanted to show that she could care for something well.

Marley, a purebred Labrador Retriever, came into the lives of John and Jenny Grogan.

John admits that it was only when the couple had made a down payment on Marley that he began to read up on Labs. As John says, "While we counted the days until we could bring Marley home, I belatedly began reading up on Labrador Retrievers. I says belatedly because virtually everything I read gave the same strong advice: before buying a dog, make sure you thoroughly research so you know what you’re getting into."

Marley was everything the couple wanted in a dog, when he was a pup. But as he began to grow, so did some of the complications that went with owning a dog.

Marley grew up to be a very neurotic dog who would go into fits of great anxiety attacks each time there would be a thunderstorm – these fits including wrecking doors and furniture. "Despite Labs’ reputation as excellent gun dogs we ended up with one that was mortally terrified of anything louder than a popping champagne cork," writes John. Marley’s vet even prescribed pills, which would help Marley cope with the thunderstorm attacks – sedatives.

John goes on to narrate many of the things that Marley got into or broke, as he got older. His neurosis got worse –but no matter how neurotic Marley was, no matter that he was asked to leave obedience school, Marley was the most gentle creature around the three kids the Grogan’s had.

It was after 13 years that Marley was put to sleep because of complications he developed in his old age.

John wrote in his column after Marley died: "What I really wanted to say was how this animal had touched our souls and taught us some of the most important lessons of our lives, ‘A person can learn a lot from a dog, even a loopy one like ours.’ I wrote, ‘Marley taught me about living each day with unbridled exuberance and joy, about seizing the moment and following your heart. He taught me to appreciate the simple things… And as he grew old and achy, he taught me about optimism in the face of adversity. Mostly, he taught me about friendship and selflessness and, above all, unwavering loyalty."

* * *

Gorby sat and listened as I read the last few chapters out loud to him. The good listener that Gorby is has always amazed me. He looked at me with his most intelligent eyes and seemed to be wondering what it was I was thinking as I read to him.

But the dog-lover in me found Marley & Me nothing out of the ordinary as pet books go. Perhaps it is because if you live with a pet (whatever that pet may be) each of them has their own quirks, their own neurosis. I remember when Yuri was alive he too was deathly scared of the lightning, loud thunder sounds and heavy rain. But we lived with it and we helped him deal with it.

There is nothing new in what Grogan communicates to his readers. Many times in the book Grogan seemed to be reading too much into Marley’s reactions and actions. And as a person who has grown up with dogs, there is nothing extraordinary or exceptional that Grogan presents to me as a pet owner or a reader of pet books.

Sure, Grogan let his kids be licked in the face by Marley. He even let Marley sit beside one of his kids as guard when the child was still in a crib. And, yes Marley was there when Jenny lost her first child. John was able to live through Jenny’s post-partum depression in the company of Marley. It was John who kept Marley safe when Jenny had had enough of Marley as she was raising their kids. And yes, the three Grogan kids loved Marley to pieces.

And, yes, the Grogans had to make the decision of their lifetime when they agreed it was time to put Marley to sleep when his illness at 13 years of age was too much for him to bear with.

But, at the end of reading the book, I was unmoved.

Maybe the pet-lover in me looks for books that allow the pets to be themselves – not for books where we, their humans, voice out what we think they are.