I’m not sure if it’s worse than dressing up a dog for Halloween, but it’s close. I’m sure Denny would get me one of those little wagons I’ve seen on the streets, the ones that cradle the hindquarters so a dog can drag his butt behind him when things start to fail. Puffy, plasticky packages of Doggie Depends stocked in the pantry. Shot full of pain medication to reduce the swelling of my joints.

And while I’m very capable of getting older, that’s not the way I want to go out. I’m lying on the cool tiles of the kitchen floor in a puddle of my own urine.

And that’s why I’m here now waiting for Denny to come home. And an even less effective tool for making clever and complicated sounds that can be linked together to form sentences. It is a horribly ineffective tool for pushing food around my mouth while chewing. I have no words I can rely on because, much to my dismay, my tongue was designed long and flat and loose. And while I occasionally cross the line into the world of the melodramatic, it is what I must do in order to communicate clearly and effectively.

Gestures are all that I have sometimes they must be grand in nature. Read an Interview with Author Garth SteinĬheck out cool photos of Garth racing, his dog, Comet, and more!Ībout the Author Books by Garth Stein Copyright About the Publisher “With your mind power, your determination, your instinct, and the experience as well, you can fly very high.” -AYRTON SENNAĬhapter One Chapter Two Chapter Three Chapter Four Chapter Five Chapter Six Chapter Seven Chapter Eight Chapter Nine Chapter Ten Chapter Eleven Chapter TwelveĬhapter Thirteen Chapter Fourteen Chapter Fifteen Chapter Sixteen Chapter Seventeen Chapter Eighteen Chapter Nineteen Chapter Twenty Chapter Twenty-One Chapter Twenty-Two Chapter Twenty-Three Chapter Twenty-Four Chapter Twenty-Five Chapter Twenty-Six Chapter Twenty-Seven Chapter Twenty-Eight Chapter Twenty-Nine Chapter Thirty Chapter Thirty-One Chapter Thirty-Two Chapter Thirty-ThreeĬhapter Thirty-Four Chapter Thirty-Five Chapter Thirty-Six Chapter Thirty-Seven Chapter Thirty-Eight Chapter Thirty-Nine Chapter Forty Chapter Forty-One Chapter Forty-Two Chapter Forty-Three Chapter Forty-Four Chapter Forty-Five Chapter Forty-Six Chapter Forty-Seven Chapter Forty-Eight Chapter Forty-Nine Chapter Fifty Chapter Fifty-One Chapter Fifty-Two Chapter Fifty-Three Chapter Fifty-FourĬhapter Fifty-Five Imola, Italy Acknowledgments

Racing in the rain my life as a dog