Henry
is a pure bread boxer with more energy than should be legal for a dog
to have.
Erin
tells us his story, his puppy stage, obedience school (again and
again), the choke collar (ineffective), the pinch collar (not much
better), finally a shock collar. We journey with him to the water, a
dog that cannot swim (buy a doggy life jacket). We take part in his
antics on the bass boat, when Erin forgot to take life jacket along.
We are right along with Erin when she tries to take Henry for a run,
she riding her bike (head over heels crash). We hear the clanging of
the weights as she uses them to get Henry's attention and try to
control his behavior. We feel for him when he crashes through the
picture window.
“My
dog is bipolar,” Erin writes. She described his “random bursts of
hazardous intelligence.” He is a dog-anomaly, she says.
“...[S]itting still has always been one of Henry's disabilities.”
There
are some funny times in the book but I would not call it a laugh out
loud type of narrative. Some of the events I didn't feel were
humorous at all, such as the Girl Scouts selling cookies incident.
Henry snapped at Erin as she tried to control him and the flesh on
her hand was torn. Also, the author reads a great deal of human
emotion into Henry's antics. That seemed too forced to me and I just
did not find it humorous.
Erin
says at the end of the book that Henry taught her many lessons. One
was that obedience comes after pain. Another is that discipline is
messy. As she contemplated her refusal to get rid of Henry, she
realized her love for him was a lesson in God's unconditional love
for us.
Visit
http://survivinghenry.com to
learn more about the author, read an excerpt, and watch videos of
Henry's crazy antics.
Erin
Taylor Young is a humor writer who gets to work in a library. She has
written for several magazines. In 2013, she received a Higher Goals
Award from the Evangelical Press Association. She was a finalist in
the 2012 Genesis contest for her contemporary fiction. She lives in
Oklahoma with her well-meaning husband, two polar-opposite sons, and
a noncompliant dog. Find out more at www.erintayloryoung.com.
Revell,
224 pages.
I
received a complimentary egalley of this book from the publisher for
the purpose of an independent and honest review.
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