The Best Dog in the World Summary, Characters and Themes
The Best Dog in the World by Alice Hoffman is a collection of personal essays in which writers reflect on the dogs who altered their families, habits, relationships, and understanding of love.
Rather than presenting dogs as uniformly obedient or heroic, the book makes room for animals who are stubborn, fearful, independent, demanding, injured, aging, or difficult to understand. Across stories of adoption, illness, marriage, parenthood, professional uncertainty, aging, and loss, companionship becomes the connecting force. The collection ultimately argues that a “best dog” is not defined by perfection but by the unique place an animal occupies in a particular human life.
Summary
Alice Hoffman opens the collection by looking back at the dogs who gave her security during an unstable childhood. Although several animals mattered to her, Houdini, a long-haired German shepherd she adopted while living in California, became the defining canine relationship of her life and stayed beside her through graduate school, writing, marriage, motherhood, moves, anxiety, and major personal changes.
Houdini was intelligent, protective, and deeply connected to Hoffman, eventually becoming a guardian to her children as well. When age weakened him and Hoffman had to let him die at fifteen, the loss remained with her for years, made even more painful when the family cat died the following day; later dogs would be loved deeply, but Houdini remained the companion who had given her courage when she most needed it.
Emily Henry’s Dottie arrives from a very different background. An older pit bull who had experienced neglect, injury, and fear, Dottie enters Henry’s home thin, cautious, and suspicious of people, but patient care gradually allows her to trust, and she becomes a constant presence during Henry’s writing, travels, storms, and ordinary domestic life.
One of Henry’s most treasured memories is seeing Dottie, despite her fear of water, follow her into Lake Michigan rather than remain separated from her. Years later, deafness, arthritis, a recurring tumor, and mobility problems force Henry and her partner to confront Dottie’s decline, eventually choosing a peaceful death at home and accepting that the grief of losing her cannot be separated from the happiness of having shared eight years with her.
Bonnie Garmus and her husband David encounter a retired racing greyhound named Cake Angel in England, later renaming her Ninety-Nine. Years of racing and a failed adoption have left her highly independent and emotionally reserved, while her first days with the couple bring comic problems involving cars, stairs, walks, and her complete lack of interest in conventional cuddling.
Yet Ninety-Nine repeatedly reveals an extraordinary sensitivity to distress. She quietly presses herself against Garmus after bad news and later comforts a crying child, a grieving widow, and a dying horse, proving that affection can appear through presence rather than obvious displays; by the time illness overtakes her, her humans understand that her restrained loyalty has always been profound.
Tova Mirvis initially believes that her complicated blended family already contains enough people requiring care, but the pandemic changes the household when her youngest child requests a dog. Sunny, a tiny cavapoochon, becomes seriously ill almost immediately, leading Mirvis and her husband Bruce to spend anxious nights administering medicine, comforting the puppy, and discovering a new form of shared responsibility.
Sunny’s recovery allows Mirvis to reflect on the life she and Bruce never had together as younger parents. Their six children all embrace the dog without the family rivalries Mirvis once feared, and as the children grow up and leave home, Sunny remains with the couple, becoming evidence that affection does not diminish when it is shared among more recipients.
Roxane Gay begins from almost the opposite position, insisting that she is not a dog person after a childhood with few pets and an early dog bite that left her wary. Wanting to give her animal-loving wife Debbie a birthday present during the pandemic, she agrees to a Maltipoo puppy who is renamed Maximus Toretto Blueberry Millman Gay, usually called Max.
Max immediately disrupts Gay’s expectations with accidents, escapes, unpredictable eating, selective obedience, and an obvious initial preference for Debbie. Gay is surprised by how personally she experiences his lack of interest in her, yet her continued care gradually changes the relationship until Max begins following her everywhere, seeking her affection, traveling with the couple, and eventually sleeping in the bed despite her earlier rules.
Adriana Trigiani also begins as someone more comfortable with cats. At a busy adoption event, she is drawn toward one dog while her daughter feels a connection to a nervous puggle named Harley, and the disagreement eventually teaches Trigiani that adopting a rescue is not simply about selecting the most appealing animal but recognizing a relationship that feels mutual.
Harley is renamed Lola and cautiously enters family life, from experiencing snow in protective shoes to meeting the family’s rescue cat Smokey. Trigiani’s daughter insists that the family, rather than the animals, should be considered fortunate, capturing a central idea of the collection: adoption can change the humans as completely as it changes the dog.
Jodi Picoult adopts Alvin after another planned adoption falls through. Rescued with his brother after being found starving beneath a barbecue grate, Alvin grows into an unusually intelligent, selective, demanding, and emotionally distant dog whose strange habits, manipulation of other pets, resistance to medication, and unwillingness to accept ordinary affection constantly challenge Picoult’s assumptions.
Alvin later develops a strong partnership with another rescue, Harvey, but remains stubbornly independent around humans until serious illness changes the balance. When a lung tumor makes breathing difficult, Alvin finally curls against Picoult during his last moments, and she recognizes that the difficult traits that once caused frustration are among the qualities that make an individual animal impossible to replace.
Isabel Allende’s account of Olivia combines rescue, marriage, loss, and the supernatural. Olivia is a Tibetan terrier found badly injured in the street, and after recovering she becomes Allende’s constant companion as well as a dog who appears strangely sensitive to the supposed ghost of John McNear in Allende’s California home.
Olivia becomes particularly important as Allende’s long marriage to Willie begins to collapse following years already marked by severe family losses. When Olivia’s failing health finally makes treatment impossible, Allende and Willie come together again for her euthanasia, sharing both the loss of the dog and the emotional aftermath of their marriage, while Olivia remains present afterward through her collar, ashes, and Allende’s memories.
Chris Bohjalian’s relationship with Jesse begins when his wife applies to adopt a dog even though he has always regarded dogs as demanding. Jesse, a nervous pit bull mix rescued from Texas, arrives shortly before the pandemic, and the reluctant owner who comforts her in the back seat during the trip home quickly becomes closely attached to her.
The pandemic leaves Bohjalian at home with Jesse for months, while his experience with COVID causes a prolonged loss of voice. Jesse’s own quiet nature makes their bond increasingly dependent on gestures and routine, and their long walks provide space for Bohjalian to release fear and grief while also changing his pace of life, social habits, and writing routine in ways he had never expected.
Laura Zigman’s son Ben longs for a sibling, but because another child is not possible, Zigman and her husband eventually consider a dog as a source of companionship. A Shetland sheepdog puppy named Lady enters the family and soon becomes far more than a substitute sibling, assuming a central emotional role for everyone in the household.
Lady remains through deaths, illnesses, moves, Ben’s adolescence, his departure for college, the pandemic, and the separation of Zigman and her husband. By sixteen and a half, her physical decline makes the approaching end impossible to ignore, and Zigman realizes how completely the dog has served as a stable center while nearly every other part of family life has changed.
Veterinary surgeon Nick Trout presents Maverick from the perspective of a doctor confronted with the limits of his own work. Maverick, a German shepherd with severe hip arthritis, undergoes a total hip replacement that initially seems successful before serious nerve damage appears, leaving Trout to face the possibility that medical treatment intended to improve the dog’s life may instead have caused new suffering.
The case becomes far more personal when Maverick’s owner Colby explains that the dog helped her survive depression and suicidal thoughts and supported her through major medical difficulties. Trout commits himself to protecting Maverick’s injured foot and preserving his quality of life, and as the dog gradually improves while continuing to trust him, Trout is forced to accept that professional responsibility includes acknowledging imperfect outcomes rather than hiding behind excuses.
Amy Tan’s Frankie introduces the competitive world of dog showing. Fascinated by Yorkshire terriers and increasingly knowledgeable about breed standards, Tan joins breeder Lisa Farmer in co-owning Frankie, whose natural confidence and physical qualities soon distinguish him in competitions.
Frankie becomes the country’s top-ranked Yorkshire terrier and succeeds at Westminster, but Lisa chooses to end his competitive career while he is still at his peak. His long show coat is removed, and he is allowed simply to live as a dog, while his qualities continue through later descendants such as Bombo, prompting Tan to reconsider whether perfection can truly be measured by standards, rankings, or physical appearance.
Elizabeth Strout meets Ethan through her first husband Marty, who is already deeply attached to the black Labrador. Ethan becomes so important to their family that his name appears inside their wedding bands and he accompanies Marty during the wedding, while an apparent diagnosis of fatal liver disease later turns out to be poisoning caused by a swallowed golf ball that can be surgically removed.
Ethan survives that crisis but eventually ages through several family moves, including periods that Strout later regrets because they did not suit the life he loved. At thirteen he becomes seriously ill and dies in the car while the family races toward emergency care, leaving Strout confronted by the extraordinary silence of a home in which a familiar animal presence has suddenly disappeared.
Ann Leary’s Eddie is perhaps one of the clearest examples of a dog who resists easy romanticization. Adopted by Leary’s daughter Devin, he grows into an anxious, highly reactive animal whose responses to noises, strangers, bicycles, dogs, and even television animals become so extreme that Leary briefly wonders whether he might be part coyote.
DNA testing instead reveals a complicated mixture that includes Australian cattle dog, and understanding his herding instincts allows Leary to interpret his behavior differently. Mental challenges, commands, tricks, and structured engagement give Eddie purpose, while physical problems limit more athletic work; at the same time, his need for interaction repeatedly pulls Leary away from isolation and into active contact with the world around her.
Paul Yoon’s Oscar begins as an animal he is uncertain he truly wants. Their relationship slowly grows through walks, running, physical closeness, observation, and quiet routines until Oscar becomes a constant companion whose aging eventually leads Yoon to think about his own father, his Korean immigrant parents, family distance, memory, and the limited time available in every important relationship.
After a shoulder injury makes Oscar’s mortality more visible, Yoon later takes him back into New York’s Hudson Valley, where memories of Yoon’s childhood become linked with the aging dog beside him. Watching Oscar recovered and standing above the Hudson River allows gratitude to temporarily overcome anticipatory grief, and the essay ends not with loss but with Yoon calling for the companion who once seemed impossible to understand.
The collection closes by returning to Hoffman, who loses Shelby, her Polish Lowland sheepdog, while the book is being edited. Shelby had entered her life shortly before the collapse of her marriage and remained beside her through more than a decade, including the isolation of the pandemic, becoming far more than a pet in Hoffman’s understanding of their bond.
Shelby’s death allows Hoffman to recognize the shared pattern running through all the essays. The Best Dog in the World ends by rejecting the idea that a person receives only one incomparable canine companion: different dogs may become the “best” at different moments, because each arrives within a particular period of family change, hardship, recovery, aging, love, or grief and leaves behind a relationship that cannot be duplicated.
Characters
Alice Hoffman and Houdini
Alice Hoffman appears as both editor and participant, using her relationship with Houdini to establish the emotional foundation of The Best Dog in the World. Her early instability makes her unusually responsive to the security offered by animals, and Houdini becomes important not because he fills a decorative role in her life but because his presence gives her a dependable form of companionship when human circumstances feel less predictable.
Houdini is defined by intelligence, protectiveness, and consistency. He accompanies Hoffman through education, writing, marriage, motherhood, anxiety, and relocation, gradually changing from the dog of a young woman into a guardian of an entire family.
His death therefore represents more than the loss of an elderly pet. Hoffman loses a witness to a long period of her own development, which explains why later dogs can be deeply loved without erasing the unique place he occupies in her memory.
Emily Henry and Dottie
Emily Henry’s role is shaped by patience rather than instant connection. She and her partner bring Dottie home partly because an older, injured pit bull seems unlikely to have many chances left, but Henry does not pretend that rescue immediately creates trust.
Dottie’s guarded behavior is essential to her characterization. Her fear of objects, sudden movement, and intrusion suggests how earlier neglect has taught her to protect herself, while her later habit of sleeping near Henry, greeting her enthusiastically, and seeking safety during storms shows trust being built through repeated ordinary experiences rather than one dramatic breakthrough.
Her decision to follow Henry into Lake Michigan despite fearing water becomes especially revealing. Dottie’s later physical decline is painful, yet Henry understands that the grief of losing her cannot be separated from the privilege of having watched a frightened animal become secure enough to love freely.
Bonnie Garmus, David, and Ninety-Nine
Bonnie Garmus is initially attracted to Ninety-Nine partly because the greyhound refuses to behave like the affectionate dog people often expect. Garmus responds to her independence with fascination rather than disappointment, allowing their relationship to develop around observation and acceptance.
David shares the practical difficulties of welcoming a retired racer into ordinary domestic life. Cars, stairs, walking habits, and basic routines reveal how little Ninety-Nine’s previous existence has prepared her for being a household companion, yet he and Garmus adapt rather than demanding that she immediately conform.
Ninety-Nine’s greatest quality is her sensitivity to suffering. Her quiet physical support for Garmus, a distressed child, a widow, and a dying horse shows that emotional generosity does not require excitement or constant physical affection, while her final years prove how completely an apparently detached animal can become part of a family.
Tova Mirvis, Bruce, and Sunny
Tova Mirvis begins Sunny’s story from the position of a mother who believes her emotional and practical responsibilities are already extensive. Her blended family has required careful management, and the arrival of a sick puppy initially seems to add another vulnerable being to an already complicated household.
Bruce reveals a particularly tender side through his response to Sunny’s illness. His singing, worry, and participation in the puppy’s care allow Mirvis to imagine what raising a child together might once have looked like, even though the couple had never seriously intended to have another baby.
Sunny becomes a unifying presence rather than a source of competition. His easy acceptance by all six children challenges Mirvis’s earlier fear that love within a blended family must be divided carefully, and his continued presence after the children begin leaving home gives the couple a new form of shared family life.
Roxane Gay, Debbie, and Max
Roxane Gay brings humor, resistance, vulnerability, and self-examination to The Best Dog in the World. Her insistence that she is not a dog person is rooted partly in childhood experience and fear, making her decision to bring Max home for Debbie an act that already requires her to move beyond her established comfort.
Debbie provides the original reason for the adoption and initially receives most of Max’s affection. That preference unexpectedly hurts Gay because it touches her own desire to feel chosen, turning what might appear to be a minor pet-owner frustration into a revealing emotional conflict.
Max gradually dismantles Gay’s rules through persistence rather than obedience. By following her, demanding attention, traveling with the couple, accumulating nicknames, and eventually sleeping in the bed, he changes her identity without requiring her to adopt a sentimental label; she may resist calling herself a dog person, but she accepts that she is specifically Max’s person.
Adriana Trigiani, Her Daughter, and Lola
Adriana Trigiani enters the adoption process convinced that she understands her own preferences, immediately becoming attracted to one particular dog. Her daughter demonstrates greater certainty about the emotional connection that matters, refusing the dog her mother favors and choosing the nervous Harley instead.
The daughter’s instinct gives her an unusually mature role in the story. She does not treat adoption as choosing an accessory and believes that the dog must somehow choose the human as well, a perspective reinforced by the adoption coordinator Chad.
Lola, formerly Harley, enters the family cautiously and must learn an unfamiliar environment, including snow and life with Smokey the rescue cat. Her presence changes Trigiani’s self-definition as a cat person, while the daughter’s insistence that the humans are the fortunate ones changes the rescue narrative from one of generosity to one of mutual benefit.
Jodi Picoult, Alvin, and Harvey
Jodi Picoult initially adopts Alvin under imperfect circumstances, finding him after another intended puppy has been promised elsewhere. This accidental beginning becomes appropriate for a relationship defined by surprise, because Alvin consistently refuses to behave according to conventional ideas of what an affectionate family dog should be.
Alvin is intelligent, manipulative, selective, stubborn, and frequently frustrating. His rejection of ordinary beds, skill at avoiding medication, emotional distance, and ability to control other dogs turn difficult behavior into personality, while his bond with Harvey gives him a partner through whom his strategic and mischievous qualities become even clearer.
Picoult’s understanding of Alvin changes most powerfully at the end. When the normally aloof dog finally curls against her as he is dying, his dependence reveals how much trust existed beneath years of independence, and Picoult recognizes that love often attaches itself most strongly to the peculiarities that make an individual difficult to replace.
Isabel Allende, Willie, and Olivia
Isabel Allende’s relationship with Olivia exists within a household already filled with humor, grief, unusual experiences, and the supposed presence of a ghost. Allende’s willingness to accept mystery gives Olivia’s strange reactions to John McNear an affectionate place in family history rather than treating them as something that must be rationally explained.
Olivia herself carries the marks of vulnerability from the beginning, having been found badly injured before recovering under Allende’s care. Once safe, she becomes an almost constant companion whose presence acquires greater importance as Allende’s marriage to Willie deteriorates.
Willie remains connected to Olivia even when the marriage fails. His reunion with Allende for the dog’s euthanasia shows how an animal can remain shared family even after human relationships change form, while Olivia’s collar and ashes allow Allende to preserve a physical connection to a companion she still regards as irreplaceable.
Chris Bohjalian and Jesse
Chris Bohjalian begins as a reluctant participant in dog ownership. His assumption that dogs require too much attention is overturned almost immediately when he comforts the nervous Jesse during the drive home and discovers that responding to her vulnerability creates attachment before he has consciously decided to become attached.
Jesse’s quietness becomes particularly important after Bohjalian loses his voice following COVID. Because verbal communication is limited, their companionship develops through movement, touch, routine, proximity, and shared walks, making Jesse well suited to a period when words are physically difficult for him.
Bohjalian’s changes are subtle but substantial. Jesse makes him slower, more socially connected, and more physically present in his environment, while the privacy of their walks gives him permission to express fear and grief that he has rarely allowed himself to release openly.
Laura Zigman, Ben, and Lady
Laura Zigman initially brings a dog into the family because Ben wants the sibling she cannot give him, but Lady quickly becomes something far larger in The Best Dog in the World. Zigman’s comparison between raising Lady and raising a child emphasizes the constant attention, responsibility, scheduling, judgment, and concern that come with caring for a dependent life.
Ben’s longing gives Lady her original purpose, yet his eventual growth demonstrates why that purpose cannot remain fixed. He becomes an adolescent, leaves for college, and moves into adulthood, while Lady continues occupying the family home as a living connection between earlier and later versions of family life.
Lady’s importance comes from endurance rather than dramatic action. Through deaths, illnesses, moves, marital separation, and the pandemic, she remains a familiar emotional center, making her decline especially difficult because losing her also means losing one of the last living constants from the family’s earlier life together.
Nick Trout, Colby, and Maverick
Nick Trout occupies a different position from the other human figures because his responsibility begins professionally. As Maverick’s surgeon, he must make difficult medical decisions, and the unexpected nerve damage following hip replacement forces him to confront the uncomfortable fact that expertise cannot eliminate the possibility of harm.
Colby transforms the case from a medical complication into an intensely personal responsibility. Her disclosure that Maverick helped her survive periods of depression and suicidal thinking makes clear that restoring the dog’s quality of life matters not only to him but also to a person whose own survival has been closely connected to his presence.
Maverick’s trust gives the story its moral force. He does not understand professional liability or surgical complications and continues responding to Trout without resentment, placing the burden of reflection on the doctor and teaching him that responsible care requires honesty, humility, persistence, and acceptance of human limitations.
Amy Tan, Lisa Farmer, Frankie, and Bombo
Amy Tan approaches Frankie through fascination with competitive showing and the demanding standards used to judge Yorkshire terriers. Her growing technical knowledge makes her capable of appreciating Frankie’s structure, movement, coat, and confidence, but the experience eventually teaches her that measurable excellence is not the same as an animal’s total value.
Lisa Farmer brings a different kind of wisdom to Frankie’s success. After he reaches the height of competition, she chooses to end his campaign rather than continue chasing achievements, cutting the coat that represented years of preparation and returning him to ordinary canine life.
Frankie remains influential through breeding and later generations, particularly Bombo. Tan’s recognition of Frankie-like qualities in a descendant who does not meet every formal standard helps her question the concept of perfection itself, suggesting that personality, memory, inheritance, and relationship can matter more than a flawless scorecard.
Elizabeth Strout, Marty, and Ethan
Elizabeth Strout enters Ethan’s life after Marty, meaning that her relationship with the Labrador begins almost like joining an already established family unit. Her joking description of Ethan as a stepson captures both the strength of his bond with Marty and the seriousness with which she eventually accepts him as part of her own family.
Marty’s devotion is visible in the extraordinary decision to include Ethan’s name inside the couple’s wedding bands and have him present during the wedding. Ethan therefore represents continuity within the marriage from the beginning, while his recovered health after the mistaken liver-disease diagnosis provides the family with additional years they initially believed they would lose.
Strout’s later regret over housing and boarding decisions reveals how memory changes the way people judge their earlier care. Ethan’s death in the car is particularly severe because it turns him almost instantly from a familiar living presence into a body, leaving Strout to confront the silence that follows when a creature who shaped a household is suddenly absent.
Ann Leary, Devin, and Eddie
Ann Leary does not hide her frustration with Eddie, which makes him one of the collection’s most psychologically interesting dogs. Adopted by her daughter Devin, he develops severe reactivity that makes ordinary city life difficult, forcing Leary to search for explanations rather than pretending affection automatically solves behavioral problems.
Discovering Eddie’s breed background gives Leary a new interpretive framework. Once she understands the intensity of his herding instincts, his staring, controlling behavior, and unusual games appear less arbitrary, and mentally demanding commands and tricks give him an outlet that conventional expectations had failed to provide.
Physical pain from elbow dysplasia may also explain part of his anxiety, adding another layer to his behavior. Leary refuses the simplified claim that Eddie “rescued” the humans who adopted him, yet she acknowledges that his relentless demand for movement and attention repeatedly pulls her away from depressive withdrawal and back toward active life.
Paul Yoon, Oscar, and Yoon’s Family
Paul Yoon’s connection with Oscar develops slowly because he is initially uncertain whether he wanted a dog at all. Their closeness grows through repeated bodily routines such as walking, running, sleeping nearby, touching, and quietly sharing space while Yoon writes.
Within The Best Dog in the World, Oscar also becomes a bridge between Yoon’s present and his family history. The aging dog reminds him of his aging father, while reflections on his Korean immigrant parents and their different attitudes toward dogs expose emotional distances that extend beyond the immediate human-animal relationship.
Oscar’s injury forces Yoon to acknowledge that companionship always exists under the pressure of limited time. Returning with Oscar to the Hudson Valley of his childhood joins several stages of Yoon’s life together, and the closing image of him calling Oscar back emphasizes gratitude and recognition rather than allowing fear of future loss to dominate the present.
Alice Hoffman and Shelby
Shelby belongs to a later period of Alice Hoffman’s life than Houdini and proves that a second or third major canine relationship does not diminish what came before. She arrives shortly before Hoffman’s marriage collapses and remains through more than a decade of change, becoming especially important during the isolation of the pandemic.
Hoffman describes Shelby through several family roles rather than a single label, indicating how difficult it is to define the relationship in ordinary pet-owner terms. Sister, daughter, baby, friend, and companion all describe aspects of a bond built through daily presence.
Shelby’s unexpected death from kidney disease affects Hoffman while she is working on the collection itself. The timing makes private grief part of the book’s final meaning, because reading other writers’ accounts after losing Shelby allows Hoffman to recognize that the capacity to love several dogs across a lifetime does not make any individual relationship less singular.
Themes
Love Beyond Perfection
Affection throughout The Best Dog in the World repeatedly grows from accepting animals as they actually are rather than demanding an ideal version of doghood. Ninety-Nine is distant and resistant to cuddling, Alvin is manipulative and emotionally aloof, Eddie is reactive and difficult, Max ignores rules, and Dottie initially distrusts the people trying to care for her; nevertheless, these qualities do not prevent deep relationships from developing and often become inseparable from what their humans eventually love most.
The collection therefore questions the idea that love must be earned through obedience, sweetness, beauty, or predictable affection. Ninety-Nine expresses compassion by silently leaning against suffering people, Alvin reveals trust most clearly at the end of his life, and Eddie becomes manageable only after Leary stops judging him through ordinary expectations and begins understanding the drives behind his behavior.
Frankie’s success in the show ring adds another dimension to the same idea. Even a dog who approaches formal standards of excellence cannot remain young, flawless, or permanently victorious, and Tan ultimately discovers that what survives most meaningfully is not perfection itself but recognizable personality, memory, influence, and connection.
Rescue, Trust, and Mutual Care
Several relationships begin with animals who have been injured, neglected, abandoned, frightened, or poorly understood. Dottie has endured serious neglect, Ninety-Nine comes from racing and a failed adoption, Olivia is found with broken bones, Jesse is a nervous rescue, Alvin has nearly starved, and Lola arrives with the insecurity of an older dog who needs a new family.
Yet the collection avoids presenting rescue as a simple story in which generous humans save helpless animals and receive uncomplicated gratitude. Trust takes time, behavior remains difficult, and some dogs never become conventionally demonstrative; the humans must alter their routines, expectations, homes, and emotional habits if the relationships are going to succeed.
Trigiani’s daughter states this reversal most clearly when she argues that the family is fortunate to have found its rescue animals. Similar exchanges occur elsewhere: Jesse changes Bohjalian’s daily life, Eddie forces Leary into movement and engagement, and Sunny gives Mirvis and Bruce a new understanding of their own partnership and family.
Rescue therefore becomes reciprocal. Humans provide food, safety, treatment, structure, and permanence, while the dogs provide companionship, routine, attention, emotional access, and reasons to remain connected to everyday life.
Aging, Mortality, and the Cost of Attachment
Death is not treated as an unexpected interruption to love but as one of its unavoidable consequences. Houdini, Dottie, Ninety-Nine, Alvin, Olivia, Ethan, and Shelby all reach endings that force their humans to decide how to respond when care can no longer restore health, while Lady and Oscar bring their writers close to the knowledge of loss before death has actually occurred.
The decision to euthanize an animal becomes one of the most difficult expressions of responsibility. Henry accepts that extending Dottie’s life is no longer necessarily kindness, Picoult must respond when Alvin can no longer breathe comfortably, and Allende and Willie temporarily reunite to accompany Olivia through her final moments.
Other stories emphasize the strangeness of absence. Strout understands immediately after Ethan dies that his body is no longer the living being she knew, while Hoffman’s response to Shelby demonstrates how inadequate ordinary condolences can feel when a daily companion disappears.
The collection never suggests that avoiding attachment would be safer or wiser. Instead, grief is treated as evidence of the scale of the relationship, and several writers explicitly or implicitly accept that the pain of losing a dog is still preferable to never having known that animal at all.
Dogs as Anchors Through Human Change
Dogs repeatedly remain present while the human structures around them shift. In The Best Dog in the World, marriages begin and end, children grow up, people move between homes, careers develop, illness disrupts ordinary life, families are rebuilt, and writers face anxiety, depression, loneliness, or questions about aging; the animals become points of continuity through periods when almost everything else feels temporary.
Houdini accompanies Hoffman from young adulthood into motherhood, Lady remains while Ben grows up and Zigman’s marriage changes, Olivia is shared by Allende and Willie even as their relationship ends, and Sunny stays with Mirvis and Bruce as their six children establish independent lives. These dogs do not prevent change, but they give their humans something familiar to return to while identities and relationships are being reorganized.
The same function appears internally as well as within families. Jesse allows Bohjalian to experience his changed life after illness differently, Eddie pushes Leary back toward activity during depression, Maverick gives Colby a reason to continue living, and Oscar leads Yoon toward memories of childhood, his parents, and his aging father.
The dogs therefore function not as solutions to human difficulty but as companions within it. Their importance comes from staying near, requiring attention, creating routine, and offering a form of continuity that helps people move through change without pretending that change can be avoided.