A Dogʼs Life: The Autobiography of a Stray (2005)

Picked up from the local little free library box because the cover was nice and was curious if I had read it or not as a kid as I couldn't remember. Given its publishing date, it came out around the time I had moved on to books for a slightly older audience than this book is intended for. It's meant for upper elementary school, but the subject matter is very realistic. This is the life of an average strange dog--there are many animal deaths. If you are looking to avoid that, I'd skip this book (though if it matters, the protagonist dog does not die by the end--the deaths are other animals in the book, a couple of dogs included). Cars, people, nature, everything is dangerous for Squirrel, the stray dog, in this. Life is lived from moment to moment. Squirrel faces a lot of abuse from humans. The ending is bittersweet. Squirrel can't recapture many of the things from the earlier parts of her life that were so important to her, but she has found a place to call home. For dog lovers and children interested in rescue work, this is a great book. It doesn't treat the child reading as ignorant and presents details as naturalistically as possible to really put the reader in the shoes as it were of the stray dog. There's no grand plot, as it is meant to be an "autobiography", but I don't think it needs one. What I enjoyed most about this book was that the perspective was from the dog rather than a human savior, and while the protagonist sees much death in her life, she survives to the end--something many dog books from my youth rarely allowed. I may be a bit biased as someone who's done rescue work, but I would definitely recommend it to children interested in dogs, realistic nature themed fiction, and children interested in rescue, rehabilitation, or vet care. ( )

My nine-year-old daughter and I have been reading this book together. No sooner than the last words of the last page were out of my mouth she declared, "That was a very sad book, Dad. Let's read something happy next."

It is a well written book and we both enjoyed it. But for the most part it was way too sad for either of us. ( )

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A Dog's Life is a story about a stray dog named Squirrel. The book is an autobiography that describes the journey Squirrel takes learning how life works for a stray dog. Squirrel faces many challenges throughout the book, meeting different people and dogs along the way. Read to find out about the journey Squirrel takes and see if she can find a happy ending. ( )

To quote Yogi Berra, this is exactly the sort of thing you'll like, if you like this sort of thing.
It's hard to imagine any book in which the title serves more accurately as a description of the book as well. This is the autobiography of a dog, from puppyhood to old age. It's in the "Black Beauty" vein, an animal telling the story in first person narration, of all the eventful things that happened in her life.
There were two drawbacks for me. First, the narrator (whose name changes several times during the story depending on who, if anyone, owns her at the moment) tells the entire story, but there's minimal character development. Beyond being generally a "good dog" we don't get any real personality from her. And second, it is, well, a dog's life. Plot is loose, big gaps of time are skipped over if nothing much happens during them. As it is, She has a much more eventful life that I suspect the average dog does, going through several owners, and spending most of her life as a stray.
We got her whole life, but I was left wondering what the real point of it was. Did Squirrel (her original name given by her mother) grow and develop as a result of the many changes in her life... well, not really.
Kids who are obsessed with dogs will probably love this book, as my daughter did. But for those looking for strong characters, intriguing interactions between characters, fascinating supporting cast and great plot twists... pass this one over and look elsewhere. ( )