I listened to this as an audio book, so my opinion of my experience may be different from other readers.

The woman who read this book did a good job. She was easy to understand and not distracting, however, occasionally there was a slight "clicking" sound in the background when she was talking that was distracting to me - as if she had some built up saliva making noises in the back of her mouth/throat. I'm not sure if others would hear this and be bothered.

This book was part memoir and part things to keep in mind if you want to get a puppy. Abramson really loves her dogs and gets a bit sappy about it at times. She had a Westie before, but the Westie was very independent and not very companion-like. Then they decided to get a golden retriever. This story is about her first year with Scout, the golden.

They got Scout from a breeder, so if you're against breeders, you may not like this. Also, they live in Connecticut but work in NYC and thus have a second house/apartment, so if don't like reading/hearing about people who have the means to have two homes and travel that frequently, you may not want to read this. Also, while researching then raising Scout, they bought many books, hired trainers to do home consults and even went to a clicker training in CA for their dog - again, they have money.

Overall, I thought this book was alright. I usually enjoy memoirs and learning how other people live their lives and don't usually mind if the author is "richer" than myself. However, when they had their second in home training consult, then traveled to CA for a clicker conference, when they were having obedience problems, I thought it was a bit over the top. Either your dog is too strong willed for you, or you are not being as consistent with your training as you let on. Also, the inconsistency of city/country living, on leash/off leash living she describes probably didn't help with the training.

I wanted this book to be more of a connection with Scout and funny things she did but it ended up being more about training and pet insurance and various other items for a pet owner to consider. I guess if I currently had a puppy or was thinking about getting one this might be more interesting, but I have two adult large breed dogs and a new puppy is not happening anytime soon.