Genevieve is an amazing dog, because she has written one of those books which while reading you constantly find yourself taking the book to your partner/child/mother/whoever’s in the house with you, saying, “Listen to this!” Then you read them an amusing extract from the book and you both laugh. And believe me in this book you are spoiled for choice over which amusing extract to share.
As Denny Fried points out in the foreword, most dogs are written about dogs by humans, whereas this one is written about humans by a dog. Genevieve turns the table on us wonderfully, with chapters entitled Picking the Right Human for You, Do Humans Think and the hilarious Test the Intelligence of Your Human. By the way, most of us will be found sadly lacking by Genevieve’s IQ test, but in applying it our dogs are advised to make sure we are well fed and rested, and to make it fun for us.
Dennis Fried has amongst other things been a stand-up comedian and a philosophy professor – and some of this has rubbed off on his dog. There is no other explanation for her producing such an amusing insightful book. Dog owners will be exclaiming. “That’s just what my dog does!” all the way through.
Genevieve is a seven pound Papillon but she never lets her lack of size get in the way of taking life head on – although a determined and experienced dog trainer does manage to cramp her style a little. Genevieve regales her reader right from describing how she came to be living with her humans, up to answering questions submitted to her by fan dogs. There are lots of laughs on the way.
If you’re looking for an entertaining read that will give you some inside information on life from a canine viewpoint then it’s hard to beat Genevieve. Just a word of advice – whatever you do, don’t let your dog read it or he’ll never be the same again!
Review by Julie Hill