Dog Trivia: Humorous, Heartwarming, and Amazing.

Gordon Turner is the author of Empress of Britain: Canadian Pacific’s
Greatest Ship and the editor of SeaFare, a quarterly newsletter on sea
travel.

If you don’t own a dog, reading about humankind’s best friend may be the next best thing. The author packs an astonishing amount of canine trivia into 200 pages, each item taking less time to read than Fido takes to polish off a dog biscuit.

Fido? There are all kinds of names to dub a dog, and the author lists those that are currently fashionable. She also describes the most popular breeds, summing up the lineage and personality of each in a few sentences. Movie dogs, television dogs, comic-strip dogs—they’re all in the book, a notable exception being Rin Tin Tin of movie, radio, and television fame. Achievements of rescue dogs, guide dogs, and police dogs make the pages, too. And there are snippets on canine couture (does Fifi really enjoy wearing a hula skirt?), dogs behaving badly (it happens), intestinal parasites, unadulterated affection, and much else.

The author is a true dog lover, and she has assembled an entertaining and enlightening collection of trivia that lives up to its subtitle. The book can be dipped into at random, but many a dog owner will be tempted to read it from cover to cover in one sitting.