You Lucky Dog

You Lucky Dog- Julia London
Berkley/Penguin Group
Release Date: August 25, 2020

Rating:
📚📚📚📚📚

Synopsis: Carly Kennedy's life is in a spiral. She is drowning in work, her divorced parents are going through their midlife crises, and somehow Carly's sister convinces her to foster Baxter--a basset hound rescue with a bad case of the blues. When Carly comes home late from work one day to discover that the dog walker has accidentally switched out Baxter for another perkier, friendlier basset hound, she has reached the end of her leash.

When Max Sheffington finds a depressed male basset hound in place of his cheerful Hazel, he is bewildered. But when cute, fiery Carly arrives on his doorstep, he is intrigued. He was expecting the dog walker, not a pretty woman with firm ideas about dog discipline. And Carly was not expecting a handsome, bespectacled man to be feeding her dog mac and cheese. Baxter is besotted with Hazel, and Carly realizes she may have found the key to her puppy’s happiness. For his sake, she starts to spend more time with Hazel and Max, until she begins to understand the appeal of falling for your polar opposite.

_________________________________________________________________

Carly Kennedy dreams of the perfect life, as presented in every rom-com and social media account out there telling her to work hard and life will reward her: she'll move to New York City, have the perfect job, lots of friends, live somewhere trendy and beautiful, eat and drink at trendy, beautiful places.  Life will be perfect.  So far, she's perfected the "work hard" part, but the rest isn't following.  Her life is a non-stop whirl of crazy, artistic publicity clients (who knew two people could feel like so much more?); crazy, divorced parents; and a crazy, stressed-out sister who dumps a depressed basset hound on Carly to deal with.  When the dog walker leaves the happy Hazel in place of her depressed Baxter, that's it!  By the time she tracks Baxter down days later, she's ready to explode.  She's not ready for Max Sheffington, who is feeding her dog mac and cheese on the couch and is far too cute to be a neuroscience professor.  Hazel and Baxter hit it off so well that Max and Carly keep puppy play dates going, which quickly turn into something magical between the dog parents as well as the dogs.  But into every rom-com some wrenches must be thrown, and Carly and Max have to try and untangle more than just leashes if they're going to get their happily ever after!

Carly is a stressed publicist trying to build a brand with a twenty-year old "artistic" fashion designer and a retiree who believes wooden circles are art.  The most sane person in her life is probably Baxter, the depressed basset hound her mother adopted to give away as a surprise gift (spoiler alert- pets as surprise gifts are never a good idea, even under the best and most thoughtful of circumstances.  Which this wasn't).  Having the dog walker mix up Baxter and another basset seems like the kind of thing that would absolutely happen to Carly.  But at heart, Carly is an optimist who accepts the craziness life enjoys throwing at her and attempts to positively reframe it in ways that would make her podcast motivational speaker mentor proud.  Max is a "brain scientist", a professor of neuroscience who researches dogs, humans, and autism- inspired by his autistic brother Jaimie.  He's a bit of the classic science type, not great with social setting or cues, not sure if someone's flirting with him, and never confident around women.  He's also kind, caring, super cute, and loves dogs.  The outgoing Carly and the quiet Max seem like opposites, but thanks to two stubborn dogs, they get the chance to discover that opposites really do attract.  The longer they spend together, the more they discover they enjoy each other's company, and the relationship that develops is sigh-worthy in its wonderfulness.

Right from the start, You Lucky Dog lets you know it is going to be a fun, comedic experience. The writing is bright and bubbly, rather like Carly herself, with plenty of humor, but never so overblown that it crosses into crazy, unrealistic drama.  Instead, the drama is completely believable and largely thanks to Carly's mother, who turns every scene she's in into a whirlwind that leaves you breathless and unsure whether you're coming or going.  Jaimie and the struggles and stresses he, Max, and their dad go through are well-written, with touching empathy.  The characters are wonderful all the way around.  The dogs are magical in their basset cuteness. 

You Lucky Dog is a celebration of dogs, love, and what happens when you stop overthinking and let things happen.  It was a book I smiled at every time I picked it up (with a cover like that, how can you not?) and was sorry when I had to put it down for any reason.  A definite must read for romantic comedy fans, dog lovers, and anyone else looking for a happy way to spend the afternoon!

I received an ARC of this book from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review 

Being A Dog

Being A Dog: Following the Dog into a World of Smell- Alexandra Horowitz
Scribner
Release Date: October 4, 2016

Rating (out of 5):
📚📚📚

Synopsis: To a dog, there is no such thing as “fresh air.” Every breath of air is loaded with information. In fact, what every dog—the tracking dog, of course, but also the dog lying next to you, snoring, on the couch—knows about the world comes mostly through his nose.

In Being a Dog, Alexandra Horowitz, a research scientist in the field of dog cognition and the author of the runaway bestseller Inside of a Dog, unpacks the mystery of a dog’s worldview as has never been done before. 

With her family dogs, Finnegan and Upton, leading the way, Horowitz sets off on a quest to make sense of scents, combining a personal journey of smelling with a tour through the cutting edge and improbable science behind the olfactory powers of the dog. From revealing the spectacular biology of the dog snout, to speaking to other cognitive researchers and smell experts across the country, to visiting detection-dog training centers and even attempting to smell-train her own nose, Horowitz covers the topic of noses—both canine and human—from surprising, novel, and always fascinating angles. 

____________________

Being a Dog is Alexandra Horowitz's search into the mysteries of a dog's sense of smell: what it is, what it tells them, what they learn, what they can do with it, and can people follow their dog's examples? How do dogs experience the world through their noses?  

The book mixes science with the author's personal experiences- both as a dog owner and as a person exploring her own sense of smell.  She describes studies she does that any dog owner can do: what what your dog is interested in sniffing while on a walk, what do you notice other dogs sniffing (and marking) and what might those clues tell you about the information the dogs are receiving? There are also examples of 'smelling tours' or tests that she does to explore what the human sense of smell is like compared to that of a dog, and whether it is possible to improve your senses.  In my opinion, these parts of the book tended to go on longer than they needed to.  There is some rambling (perhaps intentional, to get the reader to consider new ways of looking at the world?) and repetition that made me want to skim sections.  But where the book really shines is in the scientific and investigative explorations into the world of the nose of a dog.  What's happening cognitively in a dog's brain when they smell something? Why do they like scents that humans can't stand (dead fish anyone)?  How is it that a dog's sense of smell is so much better than a human's and what does that mean for both species?  

There are wonderfully written, very interesting sections on different kinds of working dogs and how they are trained: be it bomb detection, search and rescue, or truffle hunting.  Horowitz explores why dogs are able to do these jobs and why some are better at it than others.  One very interesting observation at the end is how as pets, dogs have begun to lose their sense of smell- or at least not rely on it the way they used to.  While no dog owner would believe this, an interesting anecdote about scent classes for pet dogs does certainly seem to show it's true.  

Pet lovers and science fans alike will enjoy this search into the world of scent and come away with a new view of dogs and their world.

I received an ARC of this book from NetGalley for an honest review.