The Last Dog on Earth

The Last Dog on Earth

When people think about reading a book dealing with dogs, they think it is a book directed towards girls. In the story The Last Dog on Earth written by Daniel Ehrenhaft, it is classified under scientific fiction fantasy. I still have not finished reading the book. I will though give a quick synopsis of what I read so far.

The story is in third person and it has two stories under one novel. One of the inner stories is about a lonely scientist. The scientist left the University of Portland to study on his own. Recently his colleague contacted him to see if he could help him out to resolve an epidemic in the nearby municipalities. Westerly, the lonely scientist, told his colleague that this was an epidemic of a prion disease. The prion disease has many symptoms. This prion disease was only occurring to the dogs. As it turned out people were getting this disease by dog bites. Now the lonely scientist has to research upon the prion disease again because he threw out his research many years ago. The scientist has determined that when the prion disease invades a species, like a dog, it is terminal.

In between chapters there are newspaper articles and police reports of dog attacks. In these articles there is news on how dogs are being exterminated right after they attack something or someone. In police reports there have been information describing how police officers shoot dogs right before they get attack themselves. In a news article it has been reported that the CDC has come in to handle the deranged dogs. CDC stands for Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. These officials hired by the government have described this phenomenon as a psychiatric outburst syndrome or POS. To make it sound simple, POS is when specie is on adrenaline for a long time which affects the heart rate. When the heart rate cannot handle this anymore the specie, dog, goes crazy. Afterwards the creature dies. There is also a dog trainer who has advertise that he shoots dogs for a fee or they can hire him on lessons how to shoot the dog for 45 dollars the hour.

The second story is about a story named Logan, who has to live under pressure by his stepfather. His stepfather makes him feel bad for the way he is and compares him to a neighbor, which he does not like. The mother does not really defend his son. The stepfather, Robert, has always insisted to get a dog. After a barbeque accident, this was when Robert took the decision to get a dog. Robert was unaware of the epidemic when he made the decision. He phoned a breeder to get the dog that he wanted. Logan did not want his mother to spend money while there were dogs at the shelter. To make Robert unsatisfied he chooses to pick the ugliest dog that he could find. He did compromise by calling the ugly dog he found as Jack. Jack was a name that Robert has always wanted for a dog because he had a childhood dog named Jack. As it turns out Logan did not found the dog to be a burden. Instead, Jack has become Jack’s best friend. They are always together. Both of them enjoy getting Robert annoyed. Robert has now made comments to get rid of the dog. Logan has now become attached to the dog and does not want to see her go.

This has been the first scientific fiction fantasy book that I have ever read. I did not know that such genre existed. The two genres that I was aware of have been scientific fiction and fantasy. I have read books in each of these two genres. The reason that I know that this book is scientific fiction fantasy is because there is a sticker on the side of the book that has said so. So far I find that this genre is quite interesting to read about. The reason of why it is interesting is because the story makes me pensive of how could this situation in this book relate to my future. These are the types of books that leave me wondering negative thoughts.

It has been a long time since I have read a book in third person. I say this because people can get more attached to the character if it were in first person. This story just says that “Logan was angry at Robert.” If it were in first person, a sentence could be “I was furious at Robert for treating me as an unequal”. The reason of why I make this as a comment is because it was in parenthesis “(the baseball mitt that Robert had wasted Robert’s hard-earned money, and why didn’t Logan play baseball, anyway – didn’t he know it was the greatest sport ever invented.)” (Daniel Ehernhaft 67). The person who is reading this does not have to read this book to know that this was the author’s opinion. This made me upset. As a reader I am not interested in the author’s opinion. I just care about the characters opinion in which the author of this book did not include.

The only people who I recommend this book to read happens to be the people who enjoy reading scientific fiction. This is because the book is not as fast pace as expected. This book just says what the characters are doing. It is ironic, but I believe that the title of the book is the spoiler alert. The reason of why I read this book is because I want to read what will happen to Jack. Dog lovers should not read this book because there has already been a graphic dog murder. I believe that when people hunt, they do not murder animals in such a gruesome way as it was already done in the novel. A younger reader will get lost in this book because they will not realize that these are two stories under one novel. In this situation, the reader can judge the book by its cover. Normally when the novel is considered to be great there are usually positive reviews on the back in which this book does not have. I have learned though that a best friend does not even have to be human to be one.