Guide Mentor

Character Role Analysis

Snowball

A quick note about character roles: My Life in Dog Years is a nonfiction book with an unusual structure. Each of its nine chapters is a portrait of a dog that has been important in author Gary Paulsen's life. Since the stars of his story are all canine companions…we could have just listed nine companions. (But where's the fun in that? After all, this isn't Doctor Who.) Paulsen would probably say he's got nine protagonists. Instead, we chose examples to show you how this book both follows, and departs from, the usual cast of characters you find in great literature.

Many—perhaps all—of Paulsen's dogs serve as his guides and mentors. His first (and one of the best) of these guides was Snowball, his dog in the Philippines. "I would try to…follow Snowball's lead, and in doing this I found more and saw more than I ever could have alone," Paulsen writes (2.31). When she died, he lost his constant companion, but she left him with a new way of seeing the world.