Three Wild Dogs (and the truth), by Markus Zusak (Harper Collins, 2024, $27.99, 223pp HB) Read a sample here and listen to a sample here.
By the incredible Australian best-selling author* of The Book Thief,
Love in Times of Chaos
Three Wild Dogs is not exactly about three wild dogs, but they were all rescues and rather boisterous and extroverted and difficult if that can be said for a dog. Or maybe they were rather wild but not feral, having come from a 'group home' (dog shelter).
As I was reading I wished I could see what the dogs looked like because in my mind's eye it was hard to picture them (especially the colorful Reuben), when, lo and behold I chanced upon two groups of pages with photos of the dogs and their humans! The author's two children have a lovely unique relationship with the dogs and vice versa: Reuben, a large rambunctious canine, deliberatively walks perfectly when walked by daughter Kitty but pulls when the author walks him. Nobody trained Reuben to do that.
A very unusual nonfiction book (with expletives on occasion left in) written by an established fiction author, Wild Dogs will have you bonded near the end where the denouement is revealed. You will understand the love a man has for a dog (or two or three).
The worst thing about a dog is his shorter life span, compared to his human. Perhaps that is why dogs live in the present.
I loved the foreshadowing and foreboding that Zusak includes and, thank goodness, sometimes the anticipation of unfortunate events did not seem all that critical to me. At times, this is the story of regular family pets - but at other times, I could just strangle the author as he could just strangle his dog for running away or starting a fight. I quietly thought to myself that I wished he had found a positive reinforcement trains for his dogs. Life would be less chaotic but also less full of forgiveness and love for the unbridled behavior of the dogs.
*The Book Thief is also a 2013 movie (trailer)
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