What Is a Dog?: A Memoir

by Chloe Shaw

On the heels of her family’s beloved dog’s death, one woman returns to the canines of her past in order to imagine the human she hopes to become in the future in her memoir, What Is a Dog?

Chloe Shaw is in a dog house of her own choosing. A married mother with kids, the death of Booker, her children’s eldest family pet, has left her reeling and reckoning with her lifelong relationship with dogs. Unable to shake the feeling a year later, she asks her family for some time alone to be with nothing but her thoughts and remaining canines, Safari and Otter―only to find the dogs of her past pawing at her every memory and running, sticks in mouths, back into her life.

What follows is a meditation on one woman’s life through the dogs she's loved and lost. Since she was a child, Shaw had learned to escape the hardest parts of being human by immersing herself in the lives of her canine companions, an adaptive attachment that carried her to adulthood. Yet, in marriage and motherhood, Shaw finds herself facing her most human struggles yet. Her old ways of “being the dog” in the face of hardship prove destructive, and it’s not until she’s able to love herself and learn from the dogs of her past and present that can she truly thrive as a person, and show up for the family who needs her to be their person.

With artful prose and a philosophical touch, Shaw takes us on an emotional journey anyone who has ever loved and lost a dog will connect with―and discovers dogs do more than just make our lives better―they quietly (and sometimes loudly) pull us boldly toward the person we were always meant to be.

Genres: Memoir, Dogs, Nonfiction, Animals, Audiobook, Autobiography

224 pages, Hardcover

Published July 13, 2021

Reviews

[Sheena · Rating 4 out of 5]

I cried through like the first 30% maybe. Two years ago (as of 3 days ago) I lost my first dog and listen - if you have ever put down an animal/dog that you loved this book is going to be extremely triggering. However, this resonated with me so much I was a literal mess wow. What Is a Dog is about Chloe Shaw losing her family dog Booker, causing her to look back in a linear timeline of each dog that was in her life that she loved and lost. It touches on a dogs love, losing a dog, grief, and getting a new dog. So many of her words just resonated with my heart.

I got a new dog after my dog died about 8 months later and it talks about being ready or not for getting a new dog and I feel like no one really discuses that. I really appreciated that because at the time, many people thought I was so dramatic when I was going through my grief. Chloe Shaw, were were you when I needed you then? Thanks for being incredibly validating.

My only issue with this was that I was expecting wholesome dog stories but it touched on sex, sexual assault, motherhood, birth, and marriage that it kind of made it into a different book in the middle. I felt like Shaw was going off on a tangent about her life. I understand this is a memoir but I don’t know if it should have been marketed focusing on dogs. At the same time, these aspect of her life are extremely important and I’m glad she had an outlet to share her story. It always goes back to her dogs and her love for them. I think for me personally, it went from extremely relatable to not relatable at all which is fine so I don’t know how to explain what I’m trying to say. Overall, I really did enjoy this book and I felt less alone in my grief all these years later.

“There’s no imagining a life or a me without her.”

Thanks very much to Netgalley and to the publisher for the advanced copy of this book.

[Rebecca · Rating 3 out of 5]

Shaw defines periods of her life by the dogs who have been alongside her – from Agatha, the black Scottish terrier puppy her parents gave her for Christmas when she was six years old, to Booker, the beloved 15-year-old dog she said goodbye to in 2015. I enjoyed reading about the special dogs in her life, but the flashbacks to her Brooklyn upbringing felt endless and irrelevant, and the overall structure, i.e., forming the book around a question, was unnecessary. (Can you guess that the answer will be love?)

Recommended dog memoirs: Ordinary Dogs by Eileen Battersby, Dog Years by Mark Doty

[Leigh · Rating 5 out of 5]

Loved this book ! A must read for dog lovers . But also the struggle of being ok with yourself and not hiding . Being ok with being vulnerable. . Devoured this book !

[Katie]

I'm not done with this book yet, but the first chapter had me CRYING MYSELF TO SLEEP. Weeping.

Fav quote so far (p.51) "But they weren't Agatha. No dog was. How could they be when she functioned as the very pericardium of my heart? A dog is our bridge to inside ourselves, a song of fixed, singular yearning."

[Degenerate Chemist · Rating 4 out of 5]

"What Is a Dog?" is an interesting little memoir. Chloe Shaw writes a beautiful, thoughful book where is tries to understand her canine companions and in the process comes to understand her 'humanness.'

What is a Dog? I think Shaw nailed it when she wrote "a dog is a fine cocoon in which a human can grow."

The focus of Shaw's book is her relationship with two dogs (although there are other dogs in this book); Agatha, her childhood pet and Booker, the dog that was with her through her marriage. Agatha was Shaw's most consistent childhood companion and her bond with the pup saw her through the trauma and loneliness of her youth. Booker was her 'heart dog' who allowed her to grow beyond her childhood pain.

Shaw writes about feeling caught between her humanness and her dogness. "I've needed dogs because their unapologetic, effortless need has given me permission to need, too" Shaw observes. The freedom to want and the experience of being wholly inside her own body are some of the most important lessons she learns from dogs.

And in one of the most relatable observations in this memoir, Shaw writes, " He was just a dog. Only he wasn't just a dog. No dog is, if you listen to what they are telling you. If you see what they offer in the dark. A dog is a trampoline park three hundred feet off the highway. A dog is a swift kiss in the rain. "

When Booker's health begins to fail Shaw writes, "the more madly I love you, the more often I picture losing you." It is heartbreaking to read this, but painfully true.

This book is a beautifully written memoir that accurately captures the complicated relationship between dogs and humans. More than that it is perhaps the best reflection on why our bonds with our dogs are so strong and the ways in which dogs and humans need each other.

This is a must read for anyone who has loved dogs as a part of their family.

[Zibby Owens · Rating 5 out of 5]

The book is about the six dogs that were lucky enough to be in the author's life. It was inspired by her dog, Booker, who's on the book's cover. His death left her reeling and reckoning with her lifelong relationship with dogs. This book is about one woman’s life and how it's told through the dogs she's loved and lost and how dogs help us be who we were meant to be.

One of the things that made this book so poignant was the macro extrapolation around what a dog really means to us and our life. What do they know? What do we know? And what does this relationship mean to us in our daily lives? It was just beautiful. Anybody who loves dogs will love this book. It tugs at your heartstrings, makes you see your dogs in a different light, and raises important questions about what our dogs mean to us. It provides an important reflection on an emotional and vital part of our lives that often doesn't get elevated into mainstream conversation.

To listen to my interview with the author, go to my podcast at:
https://zibbyowens.com/transcript/chl...

[Rick B Buttafogo · Rating 3 out of 5]

The title of this book is a bit misleading. While much of it was in fact about dogs, the book went in the direction more about the author’s life and how dogs helped her cope with her life. Not a bad story or anything, but I just wished the story was more about all the dogs in her life rather than all of her life issues and how her dogs were there in different stages.

[Onceinabluemoon · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 as a dog lover I assumed it would instantly be a five star read... Its opening pages set the tone, declined the entire way for me. Interesting concept, its her memoir with loads of childhood angst, I was anticipating a different read and just didn't follow her lead well...

[pugs · Rating 2 out of 5]

would've made a better essay than book. if reviewing as a memoir, pretty vague? idk maybe i'm just tired of hearing about mid to upper class white new yorkers.

[Khanh · Rating 5 out of 5]

I’m still processing. But I think that I’ll never have enough words to express all of the thoughts and emotions that I experienced as I devoured this book, which I did in a little over two hours. No regrets that I sacrificed much-needed sleep to read this. This was unlike any memoir involving dogs that I have ever read. I adored the philosophical writing, and Long after I read the last word, I stayed spellbound, unable to believe that it was over.

[Clare Smith · Rating 4 out of 5]

How much do dogs really affect our lives? Chloe Shaw takes us on a heart breaking journey of healing and self discovery in her recent book, What is a dog? After the death of her family’s dog Booker, she recounts the influence every dog in her life since childhood up until the moment of their beloved Bookers death. Shaw describes her journey from birth to adulthood with a canine joining her for each season of life.

What is a dog? is relatable story for any dog lover. Shaw’s work will cause you to think back on lovingly on the life of every dog you have ever owned and shed a tear for their absence. Shaw calls us to reflect on our four legged friends and release the grief of their passing out into the world.

I write this review as my dog zooms and runs around my appartment, causing mischief and mayhem. Much like me, this book may cause you to hug your pups a little tighter. I can only recommend this book if one of your hobbies includes crying over a book from your local library.

[Hayley DeRoche · Rating 2 out of 5]

I really wanted to love this book -- it started out lyrical yet grounded. Yet it seemed to unravel into rich-person-memoir with no meat or gravity to the rather generic and banal life stories Shaw includes and ties, some times more tenuously than others, to the dogs in her life. In reading the acknowledgements it appears Shaw was approached about writing a book about dogs, rather than pitching it herself, and it's odd to read a memoir-as-literary-debut from someone who, the entire book, seems to only make glancing references to writing by including personal poetry here and there, but no mention of how she wound up here, writing this book. All in all, about 2/3 of the way, I was flipping whole pages without reading. Alas.

[Demi Stein · Rating 4 out of 5]

Samenvatting:
Chloe was erg jong toen ze voor het eerst in aanraking kwam met een hond. Ze weet dan ook als geen ander wat het is om van een hond te houden, alsof het een familielid is. Dit betekent dat ze ook weet hoe het is om een hondenvriend te verliezen.

In Een Hondenleven beschrijft Chloe Shaw haar ervaringen met de honden in haar leven, op welke manier ze zich verbonden met hun voelden, welke invloeden een hond heeft gehad op haar leven en hoe verscheurend het kan zijn om een hondenvriend te verliezen.

--

Een boek voor een hondenvriend
Een Hondenleven is echt een boek voor mensen die zelf weten wat het is om van een hond te houden en om hun beste viervoeter-vriend te verliezen. De woorden van Shaw stralen enorm veel liefde uit richting haar honden en veel passages zijn begrijpelijk voor lezers met een hond. Het is interessant om te lezen welke connectie Shaw heeft/ heeft gehad met haar honden en wat dit met haar doet, maar dit zal niet interessant zijn voor mensen die geen voorliefde hebben voor honden.

Prettige schrijfstijl

Het boek start bij waar het voor Shaw allemaal begon, namelijk in haar jeugd. Ze deelt haar herinneringen met je en laat zien hoe op jonge leeftijd een hond al belangrijk in haar leven was. Je wordt hierin meegenomen in een tijdlijn van toen, naar nu. Ze heeft dit zeer prettig geschreven. De zinnen lopen soepel over in elkaar en door de herkenning die je in haar woorden kan vinden zal je regelmatig hardop willen lachen of juist een traantje willen laten. Hoe ze bepaalde situaties beschrijft (zoals bijvoorbeeld het overlijden van één van haar honden) is enorm emotioneel, met goedgekozen woorden en herkenbare beschrijvingen, waardoor je als lezer stilstaat bij de waarde van de vriendschap met je eigen hond.

Een hondenvriend is niet alleen maar plezier

De meeste hondenliefhebbers zullen het wel weten, het hebben van een hond is niet alleen maar plezier. Een hond hebben is ook angst hebben voor ziekte/ verwondingen en verdriet hebben om zijn dood. Shaw weet dit goed te beschrijven en verteld openhartig over haar eigen verdriet en hoe lastig het is om te rouwen om een hond.

Met name in de 'volwassen wereld' is het rouwen om een hond taboe. 'Het is maar een hond', is iets wat vaak uitgesproken wordt. Terwijl een hond vaak wordt gezien als volwaardig familielid. Shaw heeft zich daarom uiteindelijk tijdelijk teruggetrokken om eens goed te gaan rouwen voor alle hondenleventjes die zij al heeft zien gaan.

Naast het rouwen om een hond, heeft Shaw ook wel eens andere 'problemen' ervaren. In haar jeugd was haar hond haar beste vriend en kende ze niets anders. Samen waren zij één en regelmatig trok Shaw zichzelf terug als hond zijnde. Honden hebben daarom een erg belangrijke positie in haar leven gekregen, waarbij ze soms keuzes heeft gemaakt waar niet iedereen blij mee was. Zoals toen ze een tweede hond erbij nam, ondanks dat haar man daar geen behoefte aan had. Shaw keerde vaak in zichzelf, niet communicerend met haar man en kinderen, maar wel met de honden. Dit is iets wat ze onbewust deed maar wat wel ten koste ging van het gezin. Hier praat ze ook erg openhartig over en vertelt ze hoe ze dit tegenwoordig aanpakt.

Een Hondenleven is een bijzonder verhaal. Het is uitermate geschikt voor mensen die liefde voelen voor een hond of wellicht interesse hebben in het nemen van een hond. Het is openhartig en herkenbaar, het is liefdevol maar ook verdrietig. Een rollercoaster van een boek.

[Alyson · Rating 3 out of 5]

First book about dogs in a long time. from Barbara Smuts: Dogs are "nonhuman persons"...p. 109

[Jackson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Shaw doesn’t just think about herself, but she thinks about the readers. Shaw digs deeper into her life than she ever dreamed of. Shaw makes parts of her life that may not be appealing, appealing. Shaw couldn’t have chosen better words. What is a dog is an impressive book.

[Tara · Rating 3 out of 5]

One heck of a tearjerker if you own a dog. The author uses her relationships with dogs to tell some of her toughest life moments but they still felt unresolved. Regardless, it’s a good way to study a metaphorical method of storytelling

[Marcia Miller · Rating 4 out of 5]

In this debut book, Chloe Shaw demonstrates that she is an elegant, inventive writer with many stories to tell. Her memoir is both a recollection of her growing up, richly interwoven with piercing observations and analyses of the impact the various dogs in her life had on her--and she on them. Anyone who's ever loved and lost a dog will find much familiar territory--but with Shaw's own unique spin on things.

[Susan · Rating 4 out of 5]

I asked our local library to order this and I was very glad that they did. I loved all the parts with the dogs but there was a lot of personal, soul-searching stuff (her becoming a dog?) that I just didn't get. But then is is a memoir - not a dog book. I especially enjoyed reading about the dog of her childhood - Agatha 2:Dog of Love. Agatha was a terrier which right there makes her special but the relationship between the author and her Scottish Terrier made me nod my head and tear up and smile. I did add a quote about walking dogs that I particularly loved and identified with.

“It's always felt curative, walking the dogs. Ever since middle school, when I took over the job of walking Agatha, I've felt many a problem solved in the quiet, steady transmissions through a leash. If having a child is like watching your heart walk around outside your body, then walking a dog is like walking your heart. In walking dogs, my heart endures. There is the satisfaction of offering them something so pleasurable to them, but it's also being witness to it, observing them from the inside out like a field scientist making rapt note of how a dog transcribes a road.”

[Adrianne · Rating 3 out of 5]

I struggled a little bit with the flow of this book. I think the way it was broken out into chapters based upon the dog she was focusing on at the time was brilliant. However, I found myself getting lost in the moments when Chloe would go down a rabbit hole tangent. All of the information is valuable to understand her perspective and her backstory, but I just found myself struggling to follow along at times.

I highlighted many quotes throughout the book as Chloe is deeply reflective about what a dog is. There are so many human versus dog comparisons. Some of my favorites are about how special dogs truly are.

This is definitely a book for those who have felt a bond with a dog firsthand, but it is not your typical dog memoir. I had a whole different idea in my head as to what this would be.

I think it takes an immense amount of courage to publish a memoir. As a huge dog lover I was surprised that I just didn’t feel totally connected to all of it. BUT that’s just my experience, and this book is about Chloe’s.

[Matthew · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the most gorgeously written, deeply reflective books I've ever read. Shaw is brave, generous and wise. I loved the sentences, the wildly creative word choices but mostly how the whole thing holds together. What a stunning book.

[Christie Bane · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love the idea behind this book -- breaking your life into chapters based on which dogs you had at the time. I've always thought of my life as broken up into dogs. The one way I can tell for sure that I'm getting older is that the dogs change. This book is very well-written and goes in-depth about how dogs are entwined not just in your own life, but in your relationships with other people. I felt like at times there was a little more introspection and a little less action than would have been ideal for me personally, but this IS a memoir, after all, and that's what memoir does. Overall a very well-written reflection on the meaning of dogs in our lives, and read by an easy-on-the-ears narrator.

[Robert Swanson · Rating 3 out of 5]

I've owned many dogs over the past 30 years and the loss of each one is as hard as losing the first. I was very intrigued by this book and the first chapter spoke directly to me about the death of a beloved dog. Unfortunately, the rest of the memoir was more involved with the author's personal issues. Dogs played a large part in dealing with the issues, but were overshadowed by the issues. I couldn't relate to the rest of the book as I did the start.

[Judy Ann · Rating 2 out of 5]

I received this book in a goodreads contest. I was very disappointed in this book. As an animal lover, I thought I would enjoy this book. It started out ok in the first part of the book when the author talked about her dog. But then it started to ramble about her childhood and how she thought she was a dog etc. I finally gave up and didnt finish. It is definitely not a keeper for me.

[Shannon Wold · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this book. If one has ever loved a dog, currently loves a dog, or has loved a dog in the past, this is a lovely book about how important dogs are in our lives and to our lives. Likely everyone has had that one very special dog.

[Amy Wochos · Rating 4 out of 5]

A sweet memoir about having dogs in your life and a thoughtful meditation on the nature of dogs and their role in our lives. Highly enjoyed it.

[Andrea Martinsen · Rating 1 out of 5]

This is a mis-titled book. What I thought would be more about her life with dogs was actually an uneventful memoir with dogs as mostly peripheral characters.

[Sandy · Rating 1 out of 5]

I was expecting something totally different… I love dogs with all my heart but this book made no sense to me

[Amor Moffat · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book had moments of beautifully capturing all that is "Dog," I found myself struggling to get through it.

[bob walenski · Rating 5 out of 5]

I wanted this book to be the most amazing and loving book about dogs...ever! And for first time author Chloe Shaw it was. It was clearly her best effort to explain her love and emotional connectivity toward several of the dogs of her life. Chloe clearly hoped the reader could empathize and understand how deeply, how totally and how intelligently, she cared about her pets. She learned to " become dog", to totally immerse herself, mind and spirit, with her pets. She meticulously observed and tried to understand her canines...their feelings, their thoughts and processes, their behavior. Her book shares all of that and more. It was amazing and it was loving. What more could a reader want?

The only problem, if it even is a problem, is just how absolutely and totally personal the book is. The degree of honesty, soul searching and empathy Chloe Shaw exhibits is truly unbelievable. I commend her for what she shares, what she knows as her truths about herself and her pets. I guess it's just that EVERYBODY loves their pets in their own way, and maybe they don't "become dog" but even if they DID "become dog" would that make them love and care about their pets more?? I'm just not sure it would, combined with the fact that as much as Chloe KNOWS her observations and feelings are true, all she can do is express them and let them go....they can't really be proven can they.

There were moments in this book that made me dewy eyed and sad, emotionally connected and willing to share my deepest feelings with exactly what Chloe Shaw expressed. That's a sharing, a connection.... a magic that is as powerful as the bonds we are able to develop with our pets and each other. But there were also moments in this book where I was almost uncomfortable, eavesdropping and voyeuristically seeing inner thoughts and feelings of the author that I didn't need to see or feel. Chloe Shaw's memoir is deeply personal and holds back very little. I'm not sure I expected that or was 100% comfortable reading that. In fact in a couple places, only a few, I thought my eyes would roll up inside my head as I tried to figure just exactly what Chloe meant and was trying to express. Yah it was that deep.....that challenging.

So if you like dogs already, this book may open that wider, but also might scare you away a bit. If you are uncaring or sloppy in the way you care for dogs then please EAT this book....no joke.... swallow it's messages! Study it and learn and stop your abuse and lack of kindness toward a noble and wonderful form of life that just by being there for us, enriches our lives!

[Cheryl · Rating 3 out of 5]

Back inside the screened porch, they sleep, two worn-out floofs, Safari in the sun on the rug, Otter by my foot. I read and eat breakfast, Otter’s warm gorilla chest pushing against my ankle as he breathes. Occasionally, he will dream, or will seem to anyway, his floppy, furry paws going up and down in sync with his eyebrows. His pink bubblegum tongue often sticks out when he sleeps and even for the first few minutes after he wakes. It seems to me one of his doggiest moments as a dog, if to be a dog is to live wholly in the present without the burden of judgment and self-loathing. If to be a dog is to be so boldly oneself—trembling, howling, unequivocal. He has absolutely no awareness of how ridiculous he looks, or what ridiculousness is, and so ridiculousness doesn’t exist.

He’s that dog who always greets you with a toy in his mouth, that dog who believes he’s far smaller than he is, backing up into any lap that’s available—even the crisscross-applesauced legs of a small child—that dog who doesn’t want to be just close to you but touching, until he falls into a sleep so deep he forgets who and where and that he is.

If having a child is like watching your heart walk around outside your body, then walking a dog is like walking your heart. In walking dogs, my heart endures. There is the satisfaction of offering them something so pleasurable to them, but it’s also being witness to it, observing them from the inside out like a field scientist making rapt note of how a dog transcribes a road.

It’s the kind of New England day when the sun feels stronger than it is simply because we’ve just survived the winter. Booker is soaking it in, his eyes nearly closed, his steady, terrestrial self leaning toward the light. His nose is lifted slightly to suggest all he’s taking in with it. As close as dogs get to reflection, I’d say that’s what he’s doing here. He’s making his shape in the elements, knowing, being known. He’s doing what dogs do best, living out of every inch of his body.