Author’s Note

Dogs. Aren’t they just the best?

If you answered “no,” or even “yes” with a hint of ambivalence, um . . . what is wrong with you?

Sorry. Even if you’re not on Team Canine, I’m sure you’re a swell person. Maybe you’re a cat fanatic, or a guinea pig fan. I get that. I love all kinds of creatures, right down to tarantulas and naked mole rats.

And I’ll admit that some dogs are easier to love than others. My own mutt, Stan, is a case in point. Mercurial, needy, narcissistic, he’s not exactly the poster dog for Man’s Best Friend. Still and all, when Stan cuddles up just so (usually while I’m busy on my laptop), he somehow manages to pull off that mysterious canine magic trick: he makes me feel a little bit better about life.

Stan also serves as my muse, albeit sporadically. As a matter of fact, Bob, the narrator of this novel, was modeled on Stan, right down to the misanthropy, the gluttony, and the odor.

Bob originally appeared as a character in my novel The One and Only Ivan, inspired by the true story of a western lowland gorilla. The real Ivan spent twenty-seven years, alone and caged, in a shopping mall in Tacoma, Washington. Did he ever have a pal like Bob? I don’t know. But there was a pet store at the mall where Ivan lived, and he had lots of visitors. It wasn’t a stretch for me to imagine such a friendship evolving.

And so Bob was born. He had to be tiny, to fit in a hole in Ivan’s cage. He had to be wily. He had to be a street dog: tough and blunt and no-nonsense. (You can imagine my delight when I learned that the inimitable Danny DeVito would be voicing Bob in the Disney The One and Only Ivan movie. Yep. That’s Bob, all right.)

Bob’s had a tough life. He’s seen the darker side of humans. He doesn’t really get the whole “man’s best friend” thing. (His best friend, as it happens, is a gorilla.) He’s carrying some pretty heavy baggage for such a little dog. And he faces down a lot in this story: tornadoes and owls, floods and wolves, terror and guilt and self-doubt.

But through it all, Bob never loses his tiny-mutt swagger. And he never stops listening to his good-dog heart.

Even if you’re a devout cat person, I hope you enjoyed spending time with the guy.