Dog Stories for the Soul

For dog lovers, this is as good as it gets.

This collection of stories represents the best dog stories ever told by some of America's most talented writers. The stories are inspirational, humorous, adventuresome, revealing, and filled with examples of mutual love and devotion. Some of the stories are true. Others are the invention of creative minds that know what it is like to love a dog.

Nobel Prize winning author John Steinbeck writes about traveling the roads of America with his best friend, a French poodle named Charley. His loving relationship with Charley serves as a reminder of the roadblocks often inherent in human relationships. No doubt Steinbeck would have subscribed to humorist Will Rogers's observation that "if there are no dogs in Heaven, then when I die I want to go where they went." Steinbeck's story is an excerpt from his bestselling travel book Travels with Charley. For this book, Steinbeck's publisher allowed us to gather the dog stories from the travel book and present them in the order in which they were written so that they provide a continuing narrative of Steinbeck's relationship with his poodle, Charley.

Mark Twain's "A Dog's Tale" is a short story that first appeared in the December 1903 issue of Harper's magazine. The story is told from the point of view of a loyal household pet that states in the first sentence, "My father was a St. Bernard, my mother was a collie, but I am a Presbyterian."

Former Harper's magazine editor Willie Morris writes of growing up in Mississippi with his dog, Skip. The story was made into a major motion picture named My Dog Skip. Of this story, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution writes, "Written with the gentle wisdom of an E. B. White and the eternal youth of a Huck Finn."

In his hunting story, "The Slough," Andrew McKean, editor in chief of Outdoor Life magazine, t

tells the heartbreaking and brilliantly written story of his last hunt with his beloved Willow. This tale of glory, love and loss will leave you in tears for a week.

In "Story of a Marine Hero," New York Times bestselling author Maria Goodavage introduces the reader to Lucca, a decorated and highly skilled U. S. Marine canine that fought alongside her handlers through two bloody wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

New York Times bestselling author Garth Stein tells an intriguing story in "The Demented Zebra" of a sensitive and creative dog left home alone.

Memphis Magazine managing editor Frank Murtaugh writes about his childhood pet, Susie, who made him into the man that he is today.

Clarion-Ledger editorial cartoonist Marshall Ramsey writes about the death of his family dog Banjo.