New Book Review: Oh My Dog by Peri Taub

Title: Oh My Dog! by Peri Taub PTWP (Pandemic Therapist with Paws) as Transcribed by Her Person Barb Taub 

Author: Barb Taub

Date: 2023

Publisher: Barb Taub

Length: 188 pages

Illustrations: drawings by the author

Quote: "'They're breathing at me.'  'They're breathing at everyone,' he said in the reasonable tone he should have known put him at extreme risk."

Yes, we do need laws spelling out that when a member of the half of humankind that have so much difficulty following a conversation about anything but their feelings takes that "Me rational, you emotional" tone, he's asking for whatever he gets. Ideally that would be divorce papers, but men have found one of every pair of their shoes riding away in a garbage truck for less.

(Fifty points for spotting a male reader who whines, "That's anti-male bigotry!" as further proof of his emotional, logic-challenged mental processes. It is anti-stupidity. Some men can learn to  converse intelligently, even about business, even in the presence of C-cups. Women do not meet these men every day, but we'd like to. Anyway, intelligent people don't necessarily share all of our friends' emotional feelings but we do know better than to try to act as if not understanding their feelings were "reasonable.")

Not that Taub isn't laughing at herself, in this story and in all the other funny stories about her life with Peri the dog, before, during, and after the coronavirus panic years. She even laughs at her own politics. She belongs to the party that all but deified coronavirus for boosting its funders' big online businesses, at the expense of the Taxed-Enough-Already Mom'n'Pop businesses the panic destroyed. Her husband, "The Hub," belongs to the party that was inclined to think coronavirus was a hoax before it killed Senator Cain. A running joke throughout the book is that Barb listens to all the COVID panic talk, takes it seriously, and feels that people not wearing masks are trying to kill her, while Hub tries not to be cruel. Being relatively early in middle age, neither of them actually has much to fear. This is a story about how Peri kept her humans sane even when Peri herself, apparently, wasn't.

Peri is an Australian Shepherd, a relatively new breed (of US origin that surged in popularity for many good reasons. Peri presents herself as embodying several of those reasons. She's calm, sensible, willing to obey, able to communicate her needs, and wherever she goes, people always notice her as a pretty dog. She demands due respect; her humans know that their end of the contract is to go out with her at "zero-dark-thirty" in the morning just as hers is to be as clean and quiet as a cat. She was bred to be somewhere in between Lassie and Barkley, and so she is. 

Early in the history of this web site I dog-sat for an Aussie called Sydney and became one of the people who love this breed...but it needs to be said that shelters are fillng up with Aussies who've been adopted by people who just didn't have what it takes to be Their Persons. Aussies are working dogs who expect their bosses to appreciate their talent and dedication and assign them to interesting jobs. They're medium-sieed dogs, likely to live ten years or more, but 35 pounds is too much for some people to carry or hold back. They need hardly any training to walk at your heel but they do need to run sometimes. The ones breeders sell are usually healthy and low-maintenance; the ones that end up in shelters sometimes have inbred traits that are not only cosmetic "faults" but disabilities. The really distinctive "marle" coat pattern is rare in dogs, generally, because it's the effect of one copy of a lethal gene. With reasonable discipline and attention they make fantastic pets...and they also tend to appeal to people who really aren't qualified to own dogs at all.

Barb and Hub, however, have lived with dogs before, and despite a previous book having affirmed that Life Begins When Your Kids Leave Home and the Dog Dies, they're the perfect family for Peri. They keep her from doing any of the things she threatens to do to the mail carrier, take her outside when she needs to go, and appreciate her job performance as a source of relief from emotional stress. They don't really panic when she has an occasional seizure, but take her to a vet who can help. Peri knows she's loved, and makes sure her humans always know they're loved, too. 

Always loyal, almost always perky, Peri travels with her humans across North America and on adventures not only "to England, to France, and to Spain" but to Italy and Scotland as well. During the coronavirus years they are, as Taub's blog readers know, living in a castle in Scotland.

One thing blog readers might not have been prepared for is that Peri was definitely a senior dog (it doesn't always show) at the beginning of the panic, and though we're spared the dreaded end-of-the-dog-story-is-the-end-of-the-dog scene, at the end of the book we know that there won't be a sequel. The Taubs are the sort of couple who should always have a dog, if only because they enjoy talking to new acquaintances in Scotland, but there will never be another Peri.

There are, however, a lot of gorgeous Aussies in literally howling need of good homes. Giving at least two of those dogs a good home is the sort of good deed that just might compensate for having voted Republican in 1974.

Whatever kind of dog (or even cat) you choose to be owned by, all people who bond with friends of different species can relate to Peri's success in keeping her humans on the funny side of life. So I'd say that just about everybody will enjoy this book.