Dogs and Babies: Getting In Bed With America

Tonight I finished the book Marley & Me: Life and Love with the World's Worst Dog. I had heard a lot of good things about it. And it had been a long time since I read a book for pleasure. I wanted to ease back in to it. Also, I had heard this book described as Tuesdays with Morrie with a dog; I loved that book.

I was pretty wary of Marley & Me from the beginning. First, I'm skeptical of things that are widely popular. My boyfriend and I often debate this. He feels that if something is critically acclaimed by "reputable sources," then he is more interested in it. I find that if something is really raved about then I resist it like a kid who wouldn't eat his asparagus no matter how many starving children there are in China.

Second, this book is about a dog. Dogs and babies, how can you go wrong? Who is going to hate a heart-warming tale about the family dog's misadventures? But I'm interested in good writing (structure, flow, etc) and discovering the author's solid, distinguishable voice. With the formidable assistance of dogs and babies, I figured that this book could have been literary crap but no one would notice.

It took me a long time to really get into it. Of course I knew from the first page that I was hooked enough to read until the end because of, see above, dogs and babies. But John Grogan, the author, was clearly and unmistakably a journalist. Of course plenty of journalists write books, but a different style of writing really needs to be applied. Grogan did not use short, news-style sentence fragments, but did write with a certain "this happened, then this happened, insert joke here, everyone had a good laugh, this happened, this happened, that good 'ol dog is at it again."

I felt that it was fairly stiff and forced. No doubt this man loved this dog, and the dog had a tremendous impact (good and bad) on his family. But how this book translated to me (or just a broader audience) I never quite grasped. Of course, this could be mostly my own problem, as I have never owned a dog.

Doggie dreams have been dancing around in my head more and more in the recent past. I picture long walks with the dog, cuddling it as a puppy, enjoying a movie with the big furball at my feet... yet what do I really know about owning and raising a dog? It sounds great in my head, but Marley & Me really gave me a different reality. Marley failed out of obedience school, he ate everything in sight, his owners often had to pry his jaws apart to reclaim possessions, he yakked inside the house, he made giant poops, he broke things, he tore up walls and furniture, and he gave golden showers to neighbors. Clearly this book was about loving your stupid dog in spite of its gross antics. It gave moments for you to point and laugh and say, "Oh man! I remember when Sparky did this! What a great dog!" Or, "thank god Rover never acted like this! I sure love my dog!" Or, "dogs will be dogs!" But... cleaning up dog yak? Young, unemployed, idealistic dog virgins beware.

Further, despite my severe lack of dog owning knowledge, there were some incidents in the book that did not seem quite right - something I would have thought a dog owner would not want to do. The author and his wife left the newborn babies alone with the dog a lot. Fine, they trust their dog. But still, if this dog really had the serious mental problems that are written about the rest of the book, how do they know that he wouldn't just go mental with the baby? It just seems like a chance you wouldn't want to take. Also, I've always heard that when an animals back legs go then that means it's really time to think about putting them to sleep. Life is just very uncomfortable for them at that point. Again, I've never had a dog. But this dog's back legs were bad for many many months. He often couldn't get up stairs or around the house. Sure, the dog had good days, but the good days did not seem to be the majority.

In the end of the book, Grogan tries to pull it all together. His last thoughts are moving. He references the life lessons that he learned from Marley: loyalty, courage, devotion, simplicity, joy. I reflected on the importance of these ideas, maybe even finding that they are the most important family lessons that we can strive for and remember. But I'm not sure that he proved his conclusion. All the pieces may have been there, but I don't think that they were connected throughout the story. Sometimes the author's life seemed to take the lead, forgetting about the dog completely. Other times the dog stories were just overly drawn out, beating some kind of greater meaning out of every word.

This book was no Tuesdays with Morrie, though the way Grogan ties it together at the end with the themes of loyalty, courage, devotion, simplicity, and joy may make it all worthwhile. Plus, dogs and babies... can you really say no?