Gone to the Dogs: Life with My Canine Companions

A wonderful account in photographs and text of training a Labrador puppy, as well as a poignant memoir of love and loss.

About the Author :
Robert F. Jones was one of the foremost outdoor writers in America. He was also a novelist of great prowess. His thirteen books include the novels Blood Sport; The Buffalo Runners; Deadville; and The Run to Gitche Gumee, and his nonfiction includes Hunter in My Heart, Dancers in the Sunset Sky, and Upland Passage (page 156). He is an American literary treasure. Louise Jones, a senior writer and book columnist for Stratton Magazine in southern Vermont, is also a longtime bookseller at the Northshire Bookstore in Manchester Center, Vermont. Her work has appeared in Organic Gardening and Country Journal. She lives in West Rupert, Vermont. Benno Jones is a photographer living in Seattle, Washington. His work has appeared in shows at Photographic Center Northwest and in Shooting Sportsman magazine and the Manchester Journal. This is his first book.

Review :
"What Bob started, Louise lovingly and seamlessly finished. Gone to the Dogs is an honest, at times joyful, look into the life of one of the country's finest writers and one of his true passions - dogs. Benno's photographs capture the essence of this lifetime pursuit. This one takes off where Upland Passage and Jake ended." --John Holt author of Hunted: A Novel and Coyote Nowhere "A writer's writer whose voice was among the most distinctive in contemporary American letters, Bob Jones was a dog man to his very marrow. Poignant, passionate, and profoundly insightful, Gone to the Dogs is his valediction--and I can't imagine a more fitting one. With Bob's wife Louise offering her own wise, clear-eyed perspective on the canine companions they loved in common and son Benno's beguiling photographs, Gone to the Dogs, like the press of a muzzle against your thigh, cuts straight to the heart." --Tom Davis, Senior Editor and Gundogs columnist for "Sporting Classics" and author of Why Dogs Do That, To The Point, and The Tattered Autumn Sky. "Gone to the Dogs is a story about dogs in exactly the same way that A River Runs Through It is a story about fly fishing. That is to say, while you'll learn all kinds of interesting things about the Jones's wonderful Labrador retrievers, Gone to the Dogs is also a moving and beautifully written tribute to love: love of nature and animals, of one's home, of family, and most of all, love of one's spouse. Gone to the Dogs, acclaimed novelist and memoirist Robert F. Jones's last book, is an unforgettable elegy to all those qualities that define us as human, in the very best sense." --Howard Frank Mosher "Worth Reading."--"Asbury Park Press "Jones' observations and appreciation will be a joy to any reader who has cherished the quiet moments and explosive excitement that only a dog can bring...a lasting memorial to not only the fine dogs, but to the man who loved them so well...this small book is a true treasure."--"AKC Gazette ..."a fitting elegy for a fine writer and a good man..."--"Shooting Sportsman