Book Review: My Life In Dog Years

Reviewed by Erin Britton

A heartfelt and humorous memoir centered on all the canine companions that make life worth living

First there was Tippy, then Scrappy, and then some years later, there were Daisy and Ginger, briefly Homer, far longer Chessa and Henry and Jessie, next Vela and Pilar and Liam, and finally (for now), Sparkle. 

Throughout her life, Candida Pugh has owned a host of dogs, each with its own personality, peculiarities, and problems, all of which have had a profound impact on her. Hence, as she explains, My Life in Dog Years is “a love story dedicated to all the dogs who have enriched my life—to those I’ve lost and to those still with me.”

Although Henry (“Snowy white, with soulful brown eyes…an impressive mustache”) gets title billing, Pugh had her first experience of dog ownership when she was seven or eight years old, when her father brought home a stray that he’d found on the street. “Tippy, the stray, was medium-sized, sporting glossy black sealskin over a scrawny body. She looked like a derelict in an expensive fur coat.” As Tippy proved to be a skilled escapologist, she would often manage to flee the family home and go on unknown adventures, on one occasion returning pregnant, which is how Pugh gained a puppy: Scrappy.

Interestingly, as much as My Life in Dog Years is a memoir of Pugh’s lifetime of dog ownership, it is also a biography of her and those closest to her. The opening reflections on life with Tippy and Scrappy make this clear, illuminating Pugh’s childhood in a lower-income and somewhat turbulent family in San Fransisco.

It’s both funny and poignant when the young Pugh writes to Miss Cynthia, “a lovelorn columnist” with the San Fransisco Daily News, about her mother’s intention to get rid of their dogs: “My Mom wants to give our dogs away. But Scrappy is my   dog. I trained her and I love her. She’s a very good dog. Mom says it costs too much money to fix the dogs so they have to go. Please help. I am crying every night.” It’s easy to picture her mother’s resigned response when Miss Cynthia writes back and provides the money to have the dogs spayed. 

Similarly affecting is Pugh’s memory of the casual, almost taken for granted sexism that she experienced at the time and later in her life. For example, she was well aware of how, from her grandmother’s perspective, she played second fiddle in the family: “She made no secret of idolizing my brother while acknowledging me only as a footnote to the magnum opus of his existence. Her lips caressed the word boy.” This view is so ingrained that the grandmother repeats the same pattern years later when Pugh has her own family. “She crooned, ‘Isn’t it wonderful to have boys?’ I said it was and it was also wonderful to have girls. I don’t think she heard me.”

After her parents divorced and Pugh moved to a small apartment with her mother, she did have to give Scrappy up, but the desire to have a dog never left her. Thus, in her twenties, after a highly unsuccessful diversion into hamster ownership, following the birth of her first child, the breakdown of her first marriage, and the start of a new, more stable relationship, she dived back into the world of dog ownership. “I’d like to claim I thought long and hard about getting one. That I considered the ins and outs, the upsides and the downsides. Instead, I listened to my inner rocking horse.”

As an adult, Pugh had far more control over her options vis-á-vis a canine companion, but that’s not to say the related decisions were all smooth sailing. Daisy was a biter and an escape artist, and Ginger seemed to be prepping to bite the baby; he must have been a tasty-looking baby, too, because Homer did the same. As quickly as these middle dogs came, they quickly went as well. Pugh makes clear the emotional turmoil that she and her family went through each time, and there’s a lot in her reminiscences that all dog owners will relate to.

Fortunately, the dogs that arrived in her life later brought more stability with them, particularly Henry the poodle, stubborn and a biter but a rock in troubling times, and Jessie the German shepherd who was reassuring and protective. While Pugh writes far more about Henry, Jessie has a profound impact on her life, providing the backup necessary to leave the house after confronting trauma and fear after narrowly avoiding a rape. For all the humor the dogs provide, Pugh also deals with some heavy subject matter, including her childhood sexual assault.

My Life in Dog Years is packed with vignettes highlighting the eccentricities and foibles of Pugh and her canine companions, and it also elucidates a number of issues of relevance to all those interested in being a good dog owner, including the training, feeding, and the use of corrective approaches such as shock collars. Although she makes clear the joy that her dogs have brought her, Pugh doesn’t shy away from the difficult aspects of the human–canine relationship, including the need to rehome or the death of a beloved dog: “Losing a beloved dog crushes the strongest individuals, and I don’t count myself among them.”

Pugh’s heartfelt memories and amusing anecdotes make for an engaging memoir of her story, her nearest and dearest’s, and the eclectic bunch of dogs that she has had the pleasure to know. From the good times to the bad times to the downright bonkers times, all facets of dog ownership seem to feature, often in entertaining or illuminating ways. It might not convince you to get a dog, but it’ll certainly make you consider just how rich it can be.

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