What Is a Dog?

This poignant and gracefully written memoir amply embraces the complexities of the human-dog relationship in a uniquely personal way, and it's also a moving story of self-acceptance. A dog lover's warmhearted delight. - Kirkus Shaw debuts with a beautiful paean to dogs in this touching memoir recounting the canines who changed her life.... In heartbreaking, lyrical prose, she meditates on the dogs 'that shepherded me into adulthood, ' motherhood, and her decade of hard-earned marriage.... Dog lovers, take note and grab some tissues.--Publishers Weekly Shaw's language is lyrical and contemplative, whether relating small moments of intimacy or big feelings. This is a quiet, heartfelt, and memorable work that cuts right to the quick of the unique bond between dogs and their people.... 'What is a dog?' she asks, 'Maybe a dog is a second chance.' And lucky for us humans, and much like those ever-forgiving canines, we get those second chances again, and again, and again. - Booklist What Is a Dog? is a tender memoir that showcases the vulnerable self we often risk revealing only to our pets.... [This] sensitive recollection of a lifetime of anxiety and curiosity will invite readers to examine their own insecurities and to find acceptance in the process. - BookPage In What Is a Dog?, Chloe Shaw tells the story of her life -- laced with loss, loneliness, and love -- through the lens of her dogs' lives.... At every step along the way, Shaw relates more closely to her dogs than she does to other people -- than she does even to herself. The quiet triumph of this deeply felt, lyrical memoir is Shaw's willingness to confront those things that scare her about being a human... and break through to the other side, a place where she can find her inner strength, her toughness. And on that other side lies the family and home she has built, one that she is at the center of -- always with a dog or two close by.--Kristin Iversen, Refinery29 This book is for anyone who has ever loved a dog. - John Irving A beautifully written book with insights about dogs, life, and living fully. - Lynne Cox, author of Swimming In The Sink: Episode of the Heart What Is a Dog? is at once a finely observed and wrenchingly tender tribute to a spectacularly beloved and lovable dog, a penetratingly smart meditation on what dogs mean to us, and a stirring account of one woman's transformation. Chloe Shaw demonstrates how a lifetime of high-functioning efficiency in the face of pervasive if covert anxiety, and a tendency to stand on the periphery of joy, can nonethless lead to a hard-won position as a fully present soulmate, mother and writer, if we only allow ourselves to learn from those dogs who offer themselves as our shelter and uplift and gateway, and who with their unapologetic need and effortless grace show us how to be our best selves. - Jim Shepard, National Book Award finalist In What Is A Dog?, Shaw deftly captures how the deepest parts of our humanity are revealed in the company of our four-legged friends. - Lee Montgomery, award-winning author of The Things Between Us and contributor to WOOF!: Writers on Dogs