Martin Kihn’s 95-pound Bernese mountain dog habitually ruined his furniture, and probably some of his days, with his far-from-good behavior.
But that same canine also saved his marriage and possibly his life, when, after a descent into alcoholism, he replaces his obsession with booze with an obsession with competitive dog training. Unfortunately for him, his dog is one of the worst-behaved dogs the literary world has ever come across.
His refreshingly short and witty memoir, Bad Dog (A Love Story) comes out his April.
So I ask (in exchange for an advance reading copy): Does anyone out there have a “Bad dog!” story? (“Bad cat!” works too.) If so, email us at library@randomhouse.com or leave a comment!
Limited quantity! First sharers get the ARC.
Years ago when our lab mix was a puppy, my daughter came home from school one day to find that he had gotten out of the crate. Actually, what she found was a living room filled with so much shredded paper it was ankle deep all throughout the room. At first my daughter thought it was a snowstorm! He had taken every book off the bottom three shelves of our bookcases and torn every one into tiny pieces. The funniest part was that our older dog, an Airedale, was sitting in her bed acting innocent, which we would have believed since she never did anything destructive. Except that her beard was sticking out from her face in stiff spikes — it was full of book glue, so clearly, she’d gotten in on the action as well.
Yes, we had a hefty fine to pay at the library as one bottom shelf was all library books.
My puppy ate a diamond earring that I had recently received as a Christmas gift from my husband. He only ate one of the pair, thank goodness. We called the vet and were told ” it will eventually come out”. So I spent a day or so watching every trip to the “bathroom” that the dog made and found my treasure. It was sterilized enough to perform surgery, and I still wear them today.