Off The Leash: A Year at the Dog Park, by Matthew Gilbert (Thomas Dunne Books of St.
Martin’s Press, 2014, 227 pages, $24.99)
What is a Dog Park?
Who of us hasn't taken a dog
to the dog park at least once? Or wanted to? Or has a friend who frequents the
dog park (with or without said canine)?
It is well-known that this
reviewer is a yellow lab and golden lover so imagine my delight to find a book
cover with both my breeds! I simply couldn’t resist! Not only are these two
dogs in the cover photo but each has a tennis ball in his mouth on a great
expanse of green green grass with trees and skyscrapers in the background.
Dog parks are urban patches
of green, often fenced-in, where dogs can romp with each other off-leash and
run to their heart’s content, cheered on by proud humans.
Question
TV critic Matthew Gilbert
asks (and answers) the question: how does a non-dog-person such as himself
become enamored of the canine species and fall in love with “everything dog”?
Answer
In short, fall in love with
a dog-person! And start with an adorable lab puppy.
A Year in the Life of a Dog Park
Off the Leash chronicles Gilbert’s first year with his dog, a yellow lab pup named
Toby, and their canine and human friends, characters all, in the subculture of
a Boston dog park. Of course, it is also about the growing relationship between
man and dog for Gilberts works at home and can flex his work time to allow for
dog park excursions – lucky human! And lucky dog!daily
A dog park, like few other
locations, is one where people run into and befriend people they may not come
into contact with or meet in other places – a hodge-podge of people whose one
common denominator is dogs. Other than that, they are students, senior
citizens, writers, lawyers, housewives. They are also loners, joiners,
party-people and gossipers. Some are complainers and others fall in love. A
true microcosm of the world at large in a little square postage stamp of nature
peopled with dogs and their people.
Meet Charlotte, one of a
kind who probably frequents every dog park in the country. Meet the college
girl with a crush on the handsome stud of a guy who has no time for her but
they both have dogs they love. Meet Gilbert’s best friends at the dog park:
meet Toby’s best friends, which include a golden retriever who teaches the pup
how to play and do just about everything else, with golden patience.
Starting in the fall with
four essays and going through winter (seven), growing into spring (six) and
finally into summer (five), Off the Leash
has two unforgettable “chapterettes” with a discourse on poop and how
people take care of it or don’t, and on balls of the tennis kind. Off the Leash is a book also about
beginning and endings as people come and go with their dogs and college
students move on with their lives elsewhere.
Dog park members will love
this little book and will recognize all their dog park friends in it. For
novices, it will service as an introduction to the people-kinds one might
expect to interact with at the dog park. Fortunately, the author soon gave up
his ‘alpha’ role in relationship to his dog and embraced a gentle way of
training Toby! These little essays may take several day to wade through but the
cover is worth it!
(Caveats: This title was
sent to me by the publisher for review. The review first appeared on GenerationWags.)
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