Book Review: A Famous Dog's Life

We were so very honored to be asked to review A Famous Dog's Life by Sue Chipperton and Rennie Dyball, with a forward by Reese Witherspoon. The famous dog in question is Gidget, a canine actress best known for playing the Taco Bell Chihuahua in the famously successful advertising campaign.

Gidget's biographer, Sue Chipperton, was her trainer and companion throughout Gidget's life. Ms. Chipperton's story is pretty interesting, too, as you can imagine. She's trained a LOT of four leggers and also some no leggers. The path that led her to discover Gidget began in her native England, then took her to Florida, where she trained dolphins (she started as a fish gutter) at Ocean World and finally California and Studio Animal Services. The rest, as they say, is history:

Along with Gidget's personal and professional story there are lots of behind the scenes looks at life in the world of animal actors.  You won't find much in the way of smut or scandal, though. No drug or alcohol abuse or debauchery of any sort really. (Maybe human performers would do better if the American Humane Association was looking out for them, too.) If you're looking for that sort of tell-all, Hollywood exposé sort of thing, I'm afraid you'll be disappointed. However, if you are at all an animal lover - and we know you are - this very well written book belongs on your reading list.

More information, including ordering links available at AFamousDogsLife.com. Go. Fetch.. You won't be sorry.

Are You A Friend of Chet?

Hi everybuddy! We have started reconnecting with our furiends, but we do want to say we haven't gotten a chance to visit everydoggy yet. We'll get there if we stay connected. So far, pretty good.

One good thing did come out of the Winter of our Disconnect. Blog Mom had to go get some books to read  since we couldn't read blogs much. One of our favorite types of books are mysteries. Franklin and I prefer them if there's a dog involved. Well, Blog Mom came across a mystery series she'd never read at all and it happens to be narrated by one of the greatest dog detectives in the history of - well, of dog detectives. His name is Chet. You never see a whole picture of Chet,  probably so he won't be mobbed by fans, I figure. Blog Mom says he's a Fictional Dog. I'm not really familiar with that breed, but I figure it must be one of those new hybrids. It's pretty clear from his description that he's got some GSD and probably some Border Collie in him and probably one or two other things. Maybe a little Sibe or some sort of terrier. He has stated that he enjoys digging quite well. Chet is a brilliant detective and a witty narrator and the plots are quite satisfying. We were chuckling and chortling and enjoying the first book so much that Alpha Mom ran out and got her own copy right away. She was not sorry.

What we love best about the books, though, is that Chet's essential canineness shines through at all times. He doesn't come across as just a human with fur and a great sense of smell. No, Chet is all dog. He thinks like a dog, has senses like a dog, marks everywhere, lives in the now and naps like a dog. His partner and human is Bernie Little, and together they are the Little Detective agency. Oh, I could go on and on, but if you haven't read these books you really need to get hold of one. You can thank us later. Might as well start with Dog On It, which is the first and go from there. Below  is the most recent one. We don't have it yet. Blog Mom says she's trying to stretch things out a bit because we'll be a little sad when we run out, which will be soon.

 The only bad thing is that there are only three of  the books so far. They're written by a Mr. Spencer Quinn. You'd think it was amazing that someone who'd written only three books could write them so well - even the very first one, but here's the thing of that - Mr. Spencer Quinn is also Mr. Peter Abrahams who was already a highly trained author. Not so surprising, really. After all, I wasn't always Lola and I learned a lot when I was...whoever I used to be. Don't really recall all that much about it now. Franklin, as we know, was Brooklyn when he got here. A lot of you were called something else at one time, too. I suppose there's no reason why this might not happen among humans, too.

Chet has a blog of his own which is called Chet The Dog, although he's sometimes forced to share it with someone called Admin and also on Sundays there's Ingrid. We haven't quite got all that straight yet, but all we really want is a place to keep tabs on Chet while Spence (I think that Spence is Mr. Quinn's call name.) is working on more books for us to read. One nice feature is that you can upload a photo of yourself and that's all you have to do to become a Friend of Chet. We kind of messed ours up the first time, so it was up there twice. I'm not sure if that's been fixed yet. Lots of nice dogs and also some humans can be found there. They are also quite generous with excerpts of the books while they're in progress, but so far we're not reading them, preferring to read the whole book at once. We might change our tune by the time number four gets written, though. Blog Mom says we'll be jonesing by then, whatever that means. It's worth a look, really.

Sunday Book Review : You Had Me At Woof

You Had Me At Woof

How Dogs Taught Me the Secrets of Happiness

by Julie Klam

This is the first Sunday Book Review in a series of...well, of one. Yes, this is pretty much the whole series. We were sent a copy of this delightful book with an invitation to review it. It's the only one I, Lola, have ever received. Blog Mom says that back in the day, when the family had a used book and record store they'd get them sometimes, and her Mom would do some reviews for the local paper. That was way before my time. Maybe before yours, too. Since that time she has not heard a thing from any publishers until now.

We are very happy to be able to give two tails up to the one and only book we're reviewing. We laughed and we cried. What put it over the top for us is that we laughed much more than we cried. Julie Klam takes us through the important stages of her adult life from single with no dog to single with one dog all the way  to married with one child and too many dogs to fit easily into New York City apartment life. 

Before she meets the man of her dreams the author meets the dog of her dreams - quite literally. She dreamed her Boston Terrier, Otto, before she found him. Her relationship with Otto has a profound and positive influence on all the rest of her life. It's that relationship that sets her free from worries that she can't be giving enough for marriage and motherhood and eventually leads her into involvement with breed rescue and fostering. All from the comfort of what is described as a small NYC apartment. 

Any dog lover will no doubt enjoy this fun, fast read. People who aren't such dog lovers would benefit from it greatly, but it's probably too much to hope that a lot of them will read it. It comes to bookstores on October 28th and can be pre-ordered on Amazon and other booksellers on the web. You'll want one for yourself and it's a title to keep in mind if there are dog people on your holiday gift list because they'll enjoy it very much and will think what a clever and thoughtful gift giver you are.