You Tell Your Dog First

October 1, 2012
A popular writer whose fiction often features dogs (A Pug's Tale, 2011, etc.) lets fans in on the events in her life that served as inspiration. Pace's 2008 novel City Dog starred her beloved Carlie, a West Highland white terrier who is also pictured on the cover of this memoir. When she was 29, a confirmed New Yorker with two published novels under her belt, the author decided that, while she would like to find the man of her dreams, what she wanted most was a dog to share her life. Coming from a suburban home in Long Island filled with canines, this was not too surprising. Her family was so seriously into dogs, she writes, that when they gathered for holidays, the stories they would share were all about their pets; she still dates major events by which dogs they had at any given time. A feature writer with an advance on a third novel, she was working from home and able to care for a dog even in a city apartment. The first hurdle was finding a rental apartment that accepted pets, near enough to Central Park for dog-walking. That done, Pace settled on a 13-month-old Westie trained to be a show dog but disqualified by bow legs. Carlie quickly became the center of her besotted new owner's life. The author shares her experiences accustoming a nervous pet to city living, taking her along to social events and vetting prospective suitors based on how they hit it off with Carlie. Stranger-than-fiction moments include the discovery that another neighborhood Westie and Carlie were half siblings and the author's encounter in the park with a fellow Westie owner who became her therapist. A charming memoir about the special joys of having a pet and the ups and downs of single living.

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