Customer Reviews

My Therapist's Dog: Lessons in Unconditional Love

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Diana Wells has written a sophisticated memoir about recovery from personal loss with a dog as a kind of remarkable deus ex machina. This book works on the dog-lover's level, on the confessional level, as a memoir from a fascinating person, and altogether is a fine story extremely well written.

The author of this impossibly self-absorbed little book spent a day in the library -- compiling a list of historical and biological facts about dogs -- and uses these to pepper a story about her own life and woes. "Pepper" is exactly the right word too, because a little bit is seasoning; a lot becomes an irritant.

Even without the distracting arcana & ephemera about dogs this book is annoyingly whiney, with the author essentially asking "Why me?" everytime somebody dies in her life. It's hard to lose loved ones, 2-legged or 4-, but the author's own little disfunctional family is hardly unique in that regard.

And as to "Unconditional Love" I don't think the author has a clue -- she lets her dogs run undisciplined, and her relatives live unmoderated, and then moans when bad things happen. That isn't love, it's abandonment.

I hate to burst the bubble here, but I was disappointed in this book. In my opinion, it's trying to be two different books: a memoir of therapy and an informal history of the relationship between dogs and people. The jumps between the two genres are awkward and disorienting, and often have the unintended effect of trivializing the very serious issues Wells is discussing. In the midst of a moving description of a session with the therapist, she will suddenly shift to discuss some particular breed of dog. It's almost as if the dog stuff is there to distract her (or us) when the material gets too heavy.

I also would seriously question the ethics of the therapist in this story, but given the way the story ends, that's a cheap shot on my part.

this is a sweet story about the sacred bond between animals and people.