Siobhan,
As my online moniker suggests, I am a bona-fide dog person. My two big boys are by my side while I read and nothing could be more comforting.

Have you read Jon Katz? He wrote two that I can recall:
A Dog Year, 12 Months, 2 Dogs and Me.
The Dogs of Bedlam Farm

He has a third one out but I cannot recall it at the moment not having read it yet. I was so touched by his devotion to his dogs and wanting to do the best he could for them that I actually emailed him after I read the second book. He wrote back within a day with a kind note. His writing is easy and conversational, almost like just hanging out chatting with him about his adventures with his dogs.

PAM

While not precisely a "dog book," The Real James Herriot: a memoir of my father by Jim Wight, is full of the stories of the dogs that accompanied Alf Wight and the other vets from "Skeldale House" on their rounds.

Susan Conant also has a mystery series that revolves about dogs.

Siobhan, I'll second PAM's recommendation for the Jon Katz books, they are wonderful. He has a new one due out at the end of September entitled A Good Dog: The Story of Orson Who Changed My Life and I'm really looking forward to it.

I'm going to look for the Woman's Best Friend... book, I really enjoy uplifting dog stories but I can't deal with the sad ones!

Here is a link that might be useful: Jon Katz - Orson's book

Siobahn, so what's not to love about a dog :-)))))) I have two rescued corgis (and a rescued cat ... smile) and like the Rita Mae Brown Sneaky Pie series since Tee Tucker is a corgi.

Elizabeth Yates wrote "The Seventh One" but I would guess that might be out of print. I met her in the 60's in NH when she was still writing, but not a young sprout.

I also like George Pitcher's "The Dogs Who Came to Stay"

Have you ever read the young adult's book "Where the Red Fern Grows"?

Gary Paulsen also has books about his sled dogs... and I think Susan Butcher may have a book about her dogs and the Iditarod.

Second to Where the Red Fern Grows! I love that book.
You might also like Woodswoman by Ann La Bastille. Her dog is featured quite a bit in the book. It's a great read either way.

Another book one I love is called "Timbuktu" by Paul Auster, fiction written from the perspective of a homeless but not unloved dog. Beautiful story...

Does anyone remember the Albert Payson Terhune dog books written early in the 20c? It's been many years since I read them but I loved them.

yes!

Okay, I have to add my two cents here. Katz' books are simply wonderful. I started with Katz on Dogs, his theories on living with and training dogs with anecdotes sprinkled in. Then, I read Dogs of Bedlam Farm. I loved it, but should have read A Dog Year first, which chronoligically came first. He is quite amusing and you will love his story.

An image will always remain with me. One of the dogs' beloved balls went into the sewer during the dry season. When the rains came and the water level in the sewer came way up, there was the favorite ball, bobbing around. He laid down in the wet gutter and reached in with a pooper scooper to retrieve it. Some neighber saw him, thought he had a heart attack, and called the police . . . .

Enjoy! I can't wait for the Orson book to come out, too.

Kathy

I just love James Herriot as well, read them over and over.

As a child I received a copy of Black Bob about a border collie and his owner, a shepherd from Selkirk in Scotland. These stories had first appeared in the well-known children's comic 'The Dandy' (UK comics are not to be confused with US comics which we call cartoons).
I was a backward/lazy reader but wanted so much to get through these stories I forced myself to try and make sense of them. They were an enjoyable step on the way to fluent reading.

Here is a link that might be useful: Black Bob

Another "dog person" here. I second the Katz books, too. Then there is that older, wonderful classic "The Incredible Journey." (I think the author was Sheila Burnford.)

I am on the waiting list at my library for "Marley & Me", having read a small portion at a friend's house.

I have a small collection of classic dog books: (Ouida's Dog of Flanders, Lad, Lassie, et al.) I recall reading ages ago an interesting biography on A.P. Terhune. He was a most unusual person, with a rather unique life style for that day.

I am so excited about these wonderful suggestions! My TBR pile is growing exponentially as I want to read every single book recommended here.

I also found another one at the library yesterday - a story collection by the editors of Bark magazine called Dog Is My Co-Pilot. Excellent stories, very short.

Just did some searching on Amazon and Google re Albert Payson Terhune. Evidently there are several biographies, as Woodnymph mentions, and he was a rather complicated man. His home is now a park. Years ago, I found the memoirs of his mother who wrote dozens of books--not about dogs--in the 19c, under the pen name of Marian Harland. Everything seems to be a circle, sooner or later.

I loved "The Plague Dogs" by Richard Adams (author of "Watership Down"). Written from the dogs' viewpoints - and has a happy ending.

I've never much cared for animal stories, child or adult, by which I mean stories told from the animal's perspective, with animals personified. For example, I didn't enjoy The Wind in the Willows, Watership Down, or even the animal characters in the Narnia books.

However, I do enjoy both fiction and non-fiction books about animals or the animal-human relationship. I even liked Cujo because the dog, while an object of terror and danger, was presented sympathetically. (I liked the dog character. Actually, I didn't like most of the human characters.) My favorite of Richard Adam's books is Shardik, about a human society and the effect an incomprehensible giant bear has on the people. Most recently I enjoyed How to Speak Dog by Stanley Coren. It was fascinating to me how we interpret signals from the dog as compared to what the dog actually means.

Rosefolly

Carol Lea Benjamin's mystery series featuring a PI and her dog are quite good. The author is also a well-known dog trainer.
And I quite agree about the Jon Katz books - I first knew of him through his Suburban Detective series and was mesmerized
by A Dog Year.

I love dogs and dog books too. Jon Katz is superb-also liked Women and Their Dogs, Marley and Me, etc. One not mentioned that was light and enjoyable is Sight Hound by Pam Houston. I also Liked Fifty Acres and A Poodle.

I am very much a dog person - we adopted an ex-racer greyhound earlier this year to go with our lurcher cross - but not a dog-book person. The ones I read in younger years were way too sentimental for me. I'll have a look for the Jon Katz and try one of his, though!

The one book I enjoyed tremendously was John Steinbeck's Travels with Charley, a non-fiction account of his voyage of discovery around the USA, accompanied only by a standard poodle.

How about "All the Dogs of My Life" by Elizabeth (no last name)? It was written in the 30s, I think, and has been reprinted more recently. She was the author of "Elizabeth and Her German Garden" and "Enchanted April", among others. She never used a last name tho is often given the name of her first husband, Von Arnim, who died in the 1910s. Elizabeth was crazy about dogs all her life.

Oh wait a minute.. I just thought of another one.

Travels with Macy by Bruce Fogle. Vogle is and English vet who decides to take his Golden Retriever, Macy, and follow in John Steinbeck's footsteps to retrace the route Steinbeck followed in Travels with Charley to see if rural America has changed much since 1962. whew...run-on sentence, that. Highly recommended by my book and dog-loving best friend. I have not read it although she just put it on my TBR pile last week.

PAM

I went to the library today to look for these books and found most of them. One of the books I found is The Heart of a Dog by Albert Payson Terhune.

Years ago, when I was a child, I read a story that has always stayed with me. It was of a young boy who fell through ice and hung on to a tree branch while his dog went for help. The boy keeps saying to himself, "Heroism consists in hanging on, one minute longer." I have always remembered that story, and have often repeated that phrase in my own mind when I have been faced with challenges.

So, today I opened this book, turned to the title page, and saw a story named "One Minute Longer." It is indeed the same story that has remained in my mind, parts of it word for word, all these years! It is like finding an old friend, and discovering that we still have a lot in common.

Old Yeller! It's now read by schoolkids but I found it on my own as a teen. Sounder is teen lit but another wonder dog story.

Veer.....I had forgotten all about Dandy! I also had "Beano" and later, "Bunty" and "Judy" delivered once a week by the lady from the village shop.
Thanks for the memory!

"To Dance With the White Dog" ~ Terry Kay... I just put it up on paperbackswap. I loved it so much, it's going to be hard to part with it!

For all you dog book lovers-Jon Katz's new book is out this coming week.

I am finally finishing up Grogan's "Marley and Me." Some parts of it are laugh-out-loud funny. My favorite chapter is "What he ate."

Bringing this up to remind people about a new release called "Merle's Door" by Ted Kerasote about a guy who adopts (and gets adopted by) a mix Lab/Retriever up in Wyoming and how they learn from each other. It's not a sappy "I love my dog" book but contains a lot of science in it (more than I had realised) about dogs and humans and how they interact.

It's very interesting and not sentimental at all. (Keep in mind that I am only halfway through it. It may change!)

The only *slightly* irritating thing is that he keeps pretending to know what the dog is thinking all the time which I find a bit annoying. Apart from that, it's good though.

Anyway, just wanted to add this title to the list.

I recently read a dog book that I enjoyed, Two's Company by British author Joyce Stranger. It is about her relationship with two problem dogs and how she persevered and managed to help them overcome their problems. I googled her name and discovered that she ended up becoming a canine behaviour counsellor after her experiences with a third problem dog, that she wrote fiction as well as non-fiction, and wrote several other books about dogs. She died last December.

Here is a link that might be useful: Joyce Stranger's website

I'm glad to see this thread resurface - I was just going to look for it as wanted to put some of the books in my journal. I have read virtually all of the books recommended here except for the Elizabeth (von Armin) book, which I can't find. Loved them all. I'm just going through a dog book phase!

I've noticed a huge number of dog books published recently, possibly because of the success of Marley and Me. Of these, I think Merle's Door, recommended by lemonhead above, is outstanding. Although I don't totally agree with his theories and ideas (I just can't see letting our companion animals run loose through suburbia), I enjoyed the book immensely. I find the last page of the book to be extremely moving.

I was happy to see a couple of Stranger's books are on the shelves of my local library, so I'm off to pick those up. Thanks all!

Ginny12 I LOVED all of the Albert Payson Terhune books!!! My favorite though was "Lad of Sunnybank"!! I also still cry over "Where the Red Fern Grows". I just reread Red Fern last year and it is so powerful! I think it is for older children or adults because of the violence in it. I also read "The Cruelest Miles: The Heroic Story of Dogs and Men in a Race Against an Epidemic" the story of the Diptheria epidemic and the race to bring the serum and it really described how horrible the trip was for all the sled dogs not just Balto. It was an incredible story all the more because it was the true account.

As far as "Old Yeller" goes I thought the movie was good but I was disappointed in the book.
Joann

A friend gave me The New Yorkers for my birthday, knowing I loved the City and the author. I was rather eh about it, but think dog people would probably want to try it.

Here is a link that might be useful: The New Yorkers by Cathleen Schine

Siobhan, look for All the Dogs of My Life on www.bookfinder.com Look under the title, not the author's name, which has so many variations. There are many copies and it was reprinted not long ago--may be available new from Amazon.

Thanks for that, ginny, I ordered an inexpensive copy from amazon. They offer a few pages for reading, which clinched the deal for me. Elizabeth's Enchanted April is one of my favorites.

I've read The New Yorkers, and had the same opinion as cindy. The beginning was quite good, then I felt a bit let down at the end. Worth a look, though.

I love the Terhune books. My local library has a nice supply of them in the children's section. I read virtually all of them. They have that quality of preserving a way of life that is long gone. His attitude towards animals is really quite progressive. I've also seriously considered getting a collie (from a rescue, of course), or at least a collie-mix. That is, sometime in the future when I can get a dog. :)

Rescuing Sprite, by Mark Levin. This book is receiving sensational reviews. It's the story of Sprite's life after Levin rescued him.

Let's not forget White Fang and Call of the Wild by Jack London. I prefered WF, because it had the happier ending.

As a child I loved Terhune, of course, and also Snow Dog by Jim Kjelgaard, and most of all, the Silver Chief series by Jack O'Brien. The Silver Chief books have great illustrations.