A Big Little Life: A Memoir of a Joyful Dog

by Dean Koontz

the only significant measure of your life is the positive effect you have on others, either by conscious acts of will or by unconscious example. Every smallest act of kindness—even just words of hope when they are needed, the remembrance of a birthday, the compliment that engenders a smile—has the potential to change the recipient’s life. If by the example of her joy and innocence, a dog can greatly change two lives for the better, then no life is little, and every life is big. The mystery of life is the source of its wonder, and the wonder of life is what makes it so worth living. ON THE IMPORTANCE of the human-dog bond and on the reason why we give our hearts to them knowing what is to come, a character in my novel The Darkest Evening of the Year says this: “Dogs’ lives are short, too short, but you know