Jon Katz’s Running to the Mountain is the book that got him really talking about dogs. The autobiographical piece explains his impulsive purchase of a cabin in upstate New York, his attempts at establishing a new literary career, and his quest for spirituality. I read the book to meet his Labrador retrievers, and to get the back story on the man who wrote A Dog Year and The Dogs of Bedlam Farm. I read Katz’s books out of order, having learned of him first from his columns about dogs that appear in Slate. Like Katz, I disdain the ridiculous notion that our dogs are surrogate children or replacement children, or, frankly, anyone’s children other than their dams’. I love dogs for their dog-ness, and I won’t ask them to be furry people. They are fine the way they are. It soothes me to immerse myself in a book that accepts that important fact.

This is a good book, but is much more about Thomas Merton than it is about Julius and Stanley the labs. I can accept that. I like Merton. I did find it hard to accept that Katz would so clearly risk his family’s financial situation by purchasing a cabin they couldn’t afford. Except that I wish I would do the same, only long before I’m 50.

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