First published 2011
Jill Abramson, executive editor of The New York Times, brings home Scout, a nine-week-old golden retriever, on a bright summer day. What follows is a year of puppy training adventures that becomes the subject of her wildly popular Times column. Readers across America respond with floods of emails and photos that make her dog album the most visited on the newspaper's website in 2009. Abramson expands her reporting beyond the original column to create this detailed account of Scout's first twelve months. She investigates the world of dog ownership with journalistic rigor, examining debates between breeders versus shelters, adoption versus rescue, and raw diets versus vegan options. She explores competing training philosophies, from pack-leader approaches like Cesar Millan's to positive-reinforcement methods advocated by Karen Pryor. The book combines memoir with manual and investigative journalism. Abramson documents the daily realities of raising a rambunctious puppy while providing practical guidance for new dog owners navigating their pet's crucial first year.
Genres: animals, dogs, memoir, non-fiction, biography-memoir, journalism
Vibes: emotional, intimate, thought-provoking
Tropes: found-family, memoir
Setting: New York
256 pages · Hardcover · Times Books