I received a copy for review.

The Shirelle stories are cute and show how much he truly loves his dog. The rest seems detached and more like filler than anything else. He lost me quite a bit when he started talking about taking Shirelle for acupuncture.

Read it for Shirelle, skip all the extra.

"But she was what all truly loved dogs are: She was, to someone, the best thing ever"

This is a sweet memoir about a dog called Shirelle and all the lovely lessons she taught her human companion during her life.

This was a sweet book and while I don't think I got all the life lessons the author probably wanted me to from the text, I did just enjoy reading about a man who really, really loved his dog and who was his dog's world in return. The relationship between Shirelle and Douglas bordered more on life partner more so than parent/child the way you see in other dog/owner relationships and I like how much of a treasured yet respected companion Shirelle was in Douglas's life.

There were parts of this book that definitely bordered on tangents for me, and I did find myself wanting to skim through these parts before we got back to Shirelle and what she was doing at the time. I will say as well, I didn't really like how Douglas talked about the women in his life - I understand why he chose not to mention any of them by name but the way he used 'she' or 'her' rubbed me up the wrong way and I definitely would have preferred pseudonyms.

I did connect a good bit at the end of this book as Shirelle got older and little ailments began to affect her a bit more. As the owner of two aging dogs (16 and 11), I definitely understand the terrifying dilemma right now of a dog owner who isn't sure of when to draw the line between helping a dog and being selfish because I always need them around. Probably a part I'd recommend keeping some tissues beside you.