The New York Times-bestselling author Donald McCaig has established an expansive literary career, founded equally on books about working sheepdogs and the Civil War novels Jacob's Ladder and Rhett Butler's People, the official sequel to Gone with the Wind.

In his new book, Mr. and Mrs. Dog, McCaig draws on twenty-five years of experience raising sheepdogs to vividly describe his--and his dogs June and Luke's--unlikely progress toward and participation in the World Sheepdog Trials in Wales.

McCaig engagingly chronicles the often grueling experience--through rain, snow, ice storms, and brain-numbing heat--of preparing and trialing Mrs. Dog, June, "a foxy lady in a slinky black-and-white peignoir," and Mr. Dog, Luke, "a plain worker--no flash to him." Along the way, he relays sage advice from his decades spent talking with America's most renowned dog experts, from police-dog trainers to positive-training gurus.

As readers of McCaig's novels will expect, Mr. and Mrs. Dog delivers far more than straightforward dog-training tips. Revealing an abiding love and respect for his dogs, McCaig unveils the life experiences that set him on the long road to the Welsh trial fields. Starting with memories of his first dog, Rascal, and their Montana roadtrip in a '48 Dodge, McCaig leads us into his thirties, when he abandons his New York advertising career to move to a run-down Appalachian sheep farm in the least populous county in Virginia. This 1960s agrarian adventure ultimately brings McCaig, Luke, and June to the Olympics of sheepdog trials. In his narration of one man's love for his dogs, McCaig offers a powerful portrayal of the connection between humans and their animal companions.

Author: Donald McCaig
Binding Type: Hardcover
Publisher: University of Virginia Press
Published: 04/15/2013
Pages: 208
Weight: 0.94lbs
Size: 9.26h x 6.42w x 0.75d
ISBN: 9780813934501
Audience: Young Adult


Review Citation(s):
Publishers Weekly 02/11/2013 pg. 56
Kirkus Reviews 02/15/2013
Shelf Awareness 04/09/2013

About the Author

Donald McCaig, a New York Times-bestselling novelist, poet, and essayist, is the author of Nop's Trials, Nop's Hope, The Dog Wars, A Useful Dog (Virginia), Eminent Dogs, Dangerous Men, Last Poems, and An American Homeplace (Virginia). A sheepdog trainer, he lives with his wife, Anne, and their nine dogs on a farm in the western mountains of Virginia.