What Is a Dog?

A Memoir

By: Chloe Shaw

Narrated by: Cissy Jones

On the heels of her family’s beloved dog’s death, one woman returns to the canines of her past in order to imagine the human she hopes to become in the future in her memoir, What Is a Dog?

Chloe Shaw is in a dog house of her own choosing. A married mother with kids, the death of Booker, her children’s eldest family pet, has left her reeling and reckoning with her lifelong relationship with dogs. Unable to shake the feeling a year later, she asks her family for some time alone to be with nothing but her thoughts and remaining canines, Safari and Otter—only to find the dogs of her past pawing at her every memory and running, sticks in mouths, back into her life.

What follows is a meditation on one woman’s life through the dogs she's loved and lost. Since she was a child, Shaw had learned to escape the hardest parts of being human by immersing herself in the lives of her canine companions, an adaptive attachment that carried her to adulthood. Yet, in marriage and motherhood, Shaw finds herself facing her most human struggles yet. Her old ways of “being the dog” in the face of hardship prove destructive, and it’s not until she’s able to love herself and learn from the dogs of her past and present that can she truly thrive as a person, and show up for the family who needs her to be their person.

With artful prose and a philosophical touch, Shaw takes us on an emotional journey anyone who has ever loved and lost a dog will connect with—and discovers dogs do more than just make our lives better—they quietly (and sometimes loudly) pull us boldly toward the person we were always meant to be.

A Macmillan Audio production from Flatiron Books

"This poignant and gracefully written memoir amply embraces the complexities of the human-dog relationship in a uniquely personal way, and it’s also a moving story of self-acceptance."--Kirkus

"an elegant memoir... a heart-rending and heartwarming tale that will resonate with just about any mom out there." --Washington Post

Not quite what I was expecting

Less of a memoir about dogs, and more of a memoir about being a privileged white woman with anxiety. It’s beautifully written, and I did enjoy the parts about the dogs, but I never fully grasped the whole notion of “being the dog.” I don’t have much patience for navel gazing, so maybe I just wasn’t the right audience.

Awesome narrator!

Sissy is one of the best narrators I’ve listened to! It’s hard to believe that she is not the author! This is a great story and one that will touch even those that aren’t dog people!

Dogs? More like what is Anxiety and poor mental health.

This was hard to listen to- it wasn't about dogs it was about one woman's inability to cope with life and need to pretend that she's a dog. Creepy, disappointing and not at all worth my time. The narrator did a great job- the story just wasn't worth finishing.