This book dovetailed nicely with the Sacks book I was reading simultaneously. Both were memoirs of Jewish misift kids growing up around the same time period. While Sacks became fascinated with chemistry, Pinkwater grew fanatical about dogs and pets and having a pet of his own. I know Pinkwater more from the books he has written for young adults such as Alan P Mendelson Boy From Mars and The Hoboken Chicken Emergency, I also vaguely knew he was involved with dog training. In this book, Pinkwater seems like a guy who lived his whole life to be involved with dogs -- he and his wife have many dogs as pets and devote enormous amounts of time to them and used to run a dog training school -- and that his writing career is only a tiny side project. The book is humorously illustrated by his wife and has lots of lovable pictures of dogs in it. It tells real stories but manages to be funny at the same time.