In 26 chapters from A to Z, with delightful black and white sketches at the headings, psychoanalyst, scholar, and cultural critic Mikita Brottman profiles literary dogs and their humans from fiction and real life, while exploring the multifaceted roles that dogs play in our world. Here are Picasso's dachshund Lump and Freud's chow Yofi, Bill Sikes's mutt Bull's Eye in Oliver Twist and Elizabeth Barrett Browning's spaniel Flush, whose biography was penned by Virginia Woolf. While gradually unveiling her own eight-year love affair with her French bulldog Grisby, Brottman ruminates on the singular bond between dogs and humans, and ponders whether her relationship with Grisby is nourishing, dysfunctional, or even unusual.

"Utterly delightful and beautifully written.... The greatest pleasure of this wonderful book is reading about the author's love for Grisby.... Her descriptions of the two of them spending the day quietly at home is mesmerizing in its ability to remind us of the simple pleasure of hanging together, dog and person."—Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson

"Brottman writes amusingly and often movingly of the relationships between dozens of writers and artists and their canine friends, along the way exploring her own devotion to Grisby, a charismatic if at times bumptious French bulldog.... Brottman's research is deep and her storytelling compelling."—Boston Globe