Good dog stays in author's heart

0 Comments | USA TODAY, November, 2007 | by Bob Minzesheimer

NEW YORK -- When Jason Oliver C. Smith died at age 13, Anna Quindlen did what newspaper reporters and columnists do in the face of death: She wrote an obituary.

That Jason happened to be a dog -- Quindlen's golden retriever -- was only hinted at in her first paragraph. He was "a big dumb guy who was tan," which is not The New York Times' style for describing the deceased. And the obituary had a different kind of ending: "He never bit anyone, which is more than you can say for most of us."

Sixteen years and two dogs later, Quindlen, now a novelist and Newsweek columnist, has written about another loss in Good Dog. Stay. (Random House, $14.95, out Tuesday). It's a short, illustrated gift book about the long (in dog years) and happy life of a black Labrador...