How It All Goes Down
Do you believe that a dog is man's best friend? Well, a dog was definitely Gary Paulsen's best friend. Lots of dogs, in fact. My Life in Dog Years isn't a blow-by-blow of Paulsen's life, or the life of every dog he's ever known. It's a collection of portraits of special dogs that the author spent time with over the years. Here they are.
Cookie
No Cookie, no book. We start with Cookie not because Paulsen knew her first—he was an adult by the time they met—but because she's most important. She was a sled dog that saved his life during a routine beaver-trapping project gone wrong. Parking the sled and leaving the dogs to get some rest, Paulsen plunged through thin ice to what he thought would surely be his icy death. He was able to grab the rope attached to the sled. Cookie saw him fall and instantly rallied his team of dogs, which pulled Paulsen out of the water to safety.
Talk about throwing us into the deep end. Cookie's story sets the tone for how important dogs have been in Paulsen's life. Through the rest of the book, we move chronologically through canine companions he's known.
Snowball
When seven-year-old Paulsen met his first dog, Snowball, he was having a hard time adjusting to life abroad in the Philippines (his dad was stationed in the army there). His parents weren't around much and he hardly had any friends. Snowball became his constant companion, helping him explore the country, which had been torn apart by World War II.
Together, the pair met different kinds of people and saw many strange things. Like Cookie, Snowball saved Paulsen's life by killing a poisonous snake that tried to attack him.
Oh, and FYI, this portion of the book covers about 2.5 years' time, up until Snowball was killed in a car accident. Criers beware: on a scale of 1 to 10, with 1 being Puppy Bowl and 10 being Old Yeller, Snowball's demise is a solid 8.
Ike
Paulsen's next doggie portrait is of a black Lab, Ike, that was the author's hunting partner. Back in the United States after living in the Philippines, a teenaged Paulsen had become a loner, spending all his time hunting in the woods to avoid his drunk parents. Ike showed up one day and started meeting Paulsen every single morning to hunt ducks together.
Ike's a dependable friend during a lonely time for Paulsen, but he'd never go home with Paulsen and after about a year just stopped showing up. Thirty years later, by total coincidence, Paulsen found out why: Ike's owner had been away for a year fighting in Korea. He returned wounded and paralyzed from the war, and Ike was needed at home to take care of him. He'd been going home every day after duck-hunting with Paulsen to see if his owner had returned. Talk about loyalty…
Dirk
Tough and battle-scarred, Dirk was Paulsen's bodyguard. The author was still a teenager during this period, but he'd gotten older, and his parents' drinking had intensified. He had to work hard to support himself because they wouldn't buy him clothes and food.
As if that weren't bad enough, Paulsen kept getting beaten up and mugged by a local gang. Dirk, a street dog, appointed himself Paulsen's bodyguard. (The reason for his loyalty is unclear, but it might be because Paulsen gave him a hamburger.) Though he growled when Paulsen tried to pet him, Dirk faithfully followed the author around town, attacking his enemies as needed.
Now that's a good dog.
After some time, there were happy endings all around. Thanks to Dirk, the gang of muggers stopped bothering Paulsen. Dirk eventually found a happy home on a farm where Paulsen worked one summer.
Rex
Rex was a farm dog. Paulsen spent many summers working on farms, and he came to love the cast of collies he got to work with over the years. Rex was one particularly hard-working collie he got to know.
In this chapter, we follow Rex on one day's rounds, as he checked up on all the farm animals and looked after the children. Paulsen never had a strong personal relationship with this particular dog, so this chapter serves as more of a peek into the life of a hard-working canine. And boy, does he work hard. Rex never seems to rest; he goes from the kids to the cows to the barn cats to the pigs to the chickens, making sure everyone's safe and sound.
Caesar
Caesar was a gentle giant of a Great Dane that Paulsen lived with in the Colorado Mountains. He adopted him after the dog's owner moved to Hawaii. Worth noting: this chapter provides our first peek into the author's adult life (unless you count the chapter dedicated to Cookie).
Caesar was comically huge, and we mostly watch him eat hot dogs, chase Paulsen's cat, and knock over furniture—which is okay by us. Caesar made a lot of friends because people came to marvel over his enormous size. He could easily knock over a grown man with a friendly jump, but he was gentle with little kids. He was pretty good at shagging fly balls, too.
With this collection of sweet Caesar stories, Paulsen conveys all the comedy and joy that dogs have brought to his life.
Fred
Paulsen bought Fred for five bucks from a kid outside the supermarket. Fred was just a little pup at the time, but he managed to wreck much of Paulsen's house in the first twenty minutes he was there. Beside destroying things, his other big talent was eating. He figured out that if he made friends with Paulsen's pig, he could chow down at the pig trough along with him.
When Paulsen set up an electric fence to keep the pig out of his vegetable garden, Fred took a few zaps himself. Undeterred, he kept clamping down on the wire and getting jolted until he managed to tear it in two. Fred 1, Fence 0.
Quincy
Brave Quincy was a tiny Alaskan tough guy who loved Dairy Queen and eating trash, in that order. Quincy was resourceful and scrappy, fighting his way across the Alaskan tundra to find a home after he was abandoned on the side of a freeway. Paulsen got him with a trade of a Siberian husky that didn't like to run the long distances Paulsen needed for dogsled races.
Quincy's greatest moment was when he threw down with a bear that attacked Paulsen's wife. Quincy, all of nine inches high, saved the day.
Josh
After a book full of adventure, life lessons, and silly dog antics, the final chapter ends on a relatively somber note. Paulsen's at home reflecting on the time he's had with Josh (the only dog who was still living when he wrote the book). By this point, Paulsen's 59, and Josh is somewhere close to 20.
This dog is so smart, sweet, and funny—he can irrigate a ditch, make a joke, and walk guests to their car at the end of the night—that Paulsen counts knowing him as one of the earth-shaking events of his life. Josh is Paulsen's true soul mate—working to help him run a farm, providing companionship every day, and cheering him up when he's down.
Thing is, we know that someday soon Josh will die, just as all dogs do. Then, eventually, of course, Paulsen will die, too. We close on an image from Paulsen's memory: riding his horse in the mountains, with Josh trotting up ahead, making sure the path is clear and everything is all right.