I think I am qualified to state that Love, Clancy, Diary of a Good Dog may be the funniest and most moving dog book this author has ever written.

First a disclosure: this author lies about his weight to everyone, especially himself. Please know, then, that his words weigh more heavily on the world than he’ll admit.

Okay: back to the book. Many of the twenty-plus dog novels this Cameron guy has written are told from the dog point of view, but this one is unique, in that Clancy, a yellow Lab mix, is keeping a diary. In it he explains how dogs see the world, and especially how he feels about his pack, which contains several dogs (including the one he loves, Phoebe, and his rival for Phoebe’s affections, Spartan) and a motely clutch of humans who all love dogs but can scarcely navigate life with each other.

Oh, and there’s a cat named Kelsey, who refuses to be terrified by Clancy, which infuriates him to the point that he decides to come up with a brilliant plan to rid himself of the cat.

Brilliant planning isn’t exactly a known skill for a yellow Labrador.

This is a dog-meets-dog, dog-loses-dog, will dog-get-dog-back story, but it’s also about the hilariously hapless people who all pile into an over-sized van for a road trip to Las Vegas. What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas, but first you have to get there, which proves to be something of a challenge for this group.

It’s dysfunction at its most comical, but Clancy tries to make sense of it and everything else as the gang encounters robbers and tornadoes and the cornfields of Kansas.

I give it five stars because the people are real and really, really funny, Clancy is authentic and adorable, and the rest of the dogs in his world have personalities as distinct as the people. You probably haven’t been interested in a dog-in-love story since Lady and the Tramp, and this one’s about real dogs, they don’t eat spaghetti (okay, as a Labrador, Clancy would eat spaghetti and anything else, but they don’t do it in a restaurant) and it’s really intriguing to find out how Clancy feels about Spartan showing up and flirting with his Phoebe.

Meanwhile, Clancy’s person, JayB, is at something of a crossroads himself, romantically speaking. Will he win the heart of the mysterious Dominique, who lives with the always-shirtless Bedford? Will he get back with his ex, Maddy, who keeps showing up to break up with him again? What about Alana, who pulls a gun on him when they meet for the first time? We care about JayB because Clancy cares about JayB, and everything comes together in ways I promise you do not see coming.

This Cameron dude might have a cookie addiction, but he knows how to write from a dog’s perspective.

Highly recommended! Get your hands on Love, Clancy, Diary of a Good Dog.
Love, Clancy: Diary of a Good Dog