Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

I only read half of this book. I stopped after the first 100 pages when I felt I read enough to decide I didn't like it, and then read the last 20 pages to see how it ended. I think this is enough to offer a fair assessment. Marley sounds like an amusing guy; but I think pets are like kids - you don't get nearly as much joy from people telling you stories about their kids as you do from watching your own. I have dogs whom I love very much, and often things they do I find to be very entertaining even though others might not derive the same level of enjoyment if I were to tell them all about it. For this reason, there are no parts of the book that are truly funny. Perhaps I would have laughed at some parts of the book if Marley was my dog, or if I at least knew Marley - but he's not, and I don't. Unfortunately, this isn't what I disliked most about the book. What really stands out is that the author and his wife are horrible pet owners. At best they are negligent parents. More accurately, I think quite a bit of their behavior borders on animal abuse. In the half of the book I read, they did the following: * Decided to get a dog for purely selfish purposes (parental practice) * Read nothing about the breed before choosing to adopt a Lab * Failed to do any research into the breeder * Failed to seek out a trainer to work with Marley's quirks despite obvious behavioral issues * Failed to provide Marley with adequate protection from storms which completely terrified him * Used a choker with zeal, while almost deriving joy from Marley's near self strangulation * Allowed Marley to escape from a moving vehicle, seemingly finding humor in Marley hanging out a moving car by his collar The worst part comes at the end. During the last few weeks of his life, Marley becomes very sick. What does the author do? He leaves the dog at the vet's office and packs the family into the van for a Disney vacation. Fortunately he gets back just in time to have Marley put down. I then get the impression that he expects us to feel sorrow for his loss. I can't imagine going on vacation while either of my pets are left, deathly ill, at the vet's office. I had already developed a strong dislike for the author's idea of pet care. This last incident really validated that opinion. Curiously, this was one of the best selling books of 2006. I find that frustrating, as I came away from the book with a very bad opinion of the author. To have him treat his best friend so poorly and then to profit so much from it proves there is no such thing as karma.