Bark If You Love Me: A Woman-Meets-Dog Story [Hardcover]

Louise Bernikow (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 6, 2000

As a single woman living in the city, Louise Bernikow relished her independence. Then a brown boxer with amber eyes unexpectedly came into her life and taught her a few lessons about love and companionship.

At first, they're not the perfect match. She's never had a pet and knows nothing about dogs. He's got a gimpy leg and a mysterious past. They first meet in the park: he, hunched down in the backseat of a police car; she, jogging and minding her own business. But when she sees a crowd around the police car, she stops and sees a scrawny dog with big eyes gazing up at her. He needs a home, she's told. Never mind that she lives in a small fourth-floor walk-up apartment. Never mind that she's been told she's allergic to all animals. She takes him in.

With wit and heart, Bernikow chronicles their first bumpy year together--in which both dog and woman become part of the neighborhood's eccentric community of dog people. And she discovers, just as her sister-in-law predicts, that a dog is a good way to meet people (that is, men). But in the end, she realizes that she's already met Mr. Right. BARK IF YOU LOVE ME is the uproariously funny and moving story of a woman, a dog, and how they manage to find their way into each other's hearts.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Most people find that there are defining moments in life: a child's birth, getting married, even chance encounters can all divide an individual's experiences into "before" and "after." For Bernikow, a journalist and lecturer on women's history, life is divided neatly into "before fate dropped a dog into my world" and "after my first pet store visit." While running in Central Park one afternoon, this dedicated pet-hater came upon a crowd gathered around a police car. She wandered over, saw an abused pooch in the back seat and didn't exactly fall in love, although she soon found herself with leash in hand and an admiring ring of spectators. After a few days with the brown boxer she named Libro (Spanish for "book"), she discovered that they were mismatched but splendid pals, so she set off to chat with fellow dog lovers in the park's fenced-in dog-run area. In its lesser moments, the book can be schmaltzy and forced, as when Bernikow speaks of fate and epiphanies, attributing supernatural powers and uncanny intuition to her dog friend. Fortunately, these passages are tempered by Bernikow's description of trotting Libro around New York, meeting people who normally wouldn't bother to talk with her. In these vignettes, she allows her sense of absurdity to shine through, and the work takes on a cosmopolitan tone: "Many people said they'd grown up with boxers or their grandmothers had boxers, which made me feel rather retro, the kid still in stretch pants on the ski slope while everyone else wore microfiber." Her delightful riff on her dog's life will be snapped up like a delicious treat. Agent, Lisa Bankoff, ICM. Author tour. (Oct.)
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist

Dog fanciers will enjoy this true story of the author's gradual transformation from footloose Manhattanite and social butterfly into responsible dog owner. After she rescued an abandoned dog in Central Park and decided to keep him, Bernikow's entire lifestyle had to change. In her book she provides an honest portrait of how having a dog changed her life, socially, mentally, and physically. Writing a good book for first-time owners who aren't sure about the degree of responsibility involved in dog ownership, Bernikow shares all the ups and downs that she experienced. Her story shows how, at first, she felt overwhelmed and a bit resentful about her new responsibility but ultimately realized that, for her at least, the good things outweighed the inconveniences. Kathleen Hughes
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 208 pages
• Publisher: Algonquin Books; 1St Edition edition (October 6, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1565122585
• ISBN-13: 978-1565122581
• Product Dimensions: 7.2 x 5.2 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11.5 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (37 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,478,700 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

28 of 28 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Bark If You Love Me, November 9, 2000

By 

Dona Munker (New York, NY USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Bark If You Love Me: A Woman-Meets-Dog Story (Hardcover)

I'm not ordinarily a reader of woman-meets-dog books-- I picked this one up planning to give it to a friend who recently became the wildly enthusiastic owner of a poodle puppy.

I ended by reading it myself, and with more interest than I would have expected, given my own dogless state. At first, I just wanted to find out more about the mystery surrounding Libro, a fifty-pound hunk whom the author found cowering in Central Park in pitiable condition. (The eventual solution to the mystery, while incomplete, is surprising and touching.) Then I got pulled into the book's deftly-drawn portrait of the existence of a contemporary single professional woman on New York's Upper West Side. Libro's new owner isn't a sweetie-pie; she's actually a pretty tough cookie for whom caving in to love, mutual dependence, and emotional intimacy with both humans and dogs is, at least at that point in her life, not the easiest thing in the world.

Bark If You Love Me, the literary result of her struggle, is kind of an offbeat book in its genre--it's nowhere near as cuddly as its title suggests, and some of the narrator's efforts to cope with the trials of being a first-time dog owner may distress some dyed-in-the-wool pet owners looking for the printed equivalent of a warm puppy. But Libro's an extremely likable protagonist, and the story of his fate as an adoptee and the author's as his somewhat ambivalent adoptive owner held my attention to the end. In sum: a tough, sophisticated, very New York woman-meets-dog story that's as much about a certain kind of contemporary American woman's existence as it is about a very, very nice dog.

15 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An easy read, a gentle laugh, October 3, 2000

By 

"lansum" (Dublin, GA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Bark If You Love Me: A Woman-Meets-Dog Story (Hardcover)

Anyone who's ever owned a dog knows that there's a lot more to it than patting Fido and filling up a food dish. It really is an entry into an enormous club, filled with veterinarians, new friends, neighbors you've never known until your dog starts sniffing them, and relatives you thought you knew right up until the time they start giving you unsolicited opinions about ringworm. Louise Bernikow relates her entry into this club with light-hearted humor in her new book Bark If You Love Me.

This is a non-fiction book but a light read that is very much like a novel. In the first chapter, Ms.Bernikow does something her mother always warned her not to do: she brings home a strange male. This time, it's a boxer she names Libro. You don't need to own a dog to laugh at the quirky characters she and Libro meet. At times, she realizes with some surprise that she feels motherly toward him. There is a lover (human), and a mystery over Libro's past, but through it all, she laughs gently at herself and learns what a trusting, reliable relationship can mean to a single woman, even if it is with a dog.

Berkinow is a journalist whose writes about women's history and the nature of being single in contemporary society (see: The American Women's Almanac : An Inspiring and Irreverent Women's History.) Her latest book will make you laugh and if you don't own a dog already, might make you think seriously about getting one.

13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars It's a love story., April 28, 2001

By 

Rebekah Sue Harris (West Haven, CT USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Bark If You Love Me: A Woman-Meets-Dog Story (Hardcover)

WOOF!

I'm barking. I loved this story.

Basically, a woman takes in an abandoned dog.

Not so basically, Louise and Libro need each other. They grow to understand each other. They take care of each other. They both make mistakes (Louise's perhaps worse than Libro's). A human-to-animal relationship is different from a human-to-human relationship in that, with animals, love really can conquer all.

And Louise's reaction to Mickey -- classic! and beautiful!

I laughed out loud. I gasped. I sobbed. I finished the book and emailed a long-lost friend with whom I renewed contact this evening. I emailed him to suggest that he read the book immediately.

"Bark If You Love Me" was referred to me (cat person) by my brother's girlfriend (dog person at the boxer level). It was every bit as wonderful as she said. When I return this to the Bookmobile, I will strongly suggest that the librarians recommend this book to people of all ages.