Drinking with Miss Dutchie - A Memoir

Inside Sorry I Pooped in Your Shoe, writer and comedian Jeremy Greenberg presents a collection of 50 laugh-out-loud letters and accompanying full-color photographs that explain Fido's love of funky smells, why a ball needs to be thrown again, and practically every other lovably loony canine characteristic.

From an impassioned plea to stop the silly nicknames, to an attempt to skip a bath, to explanations for stolen shoes and swiped sandwiches, Sorry I Pooped in Your Shoe offers a pooch's perspective on common canine vs. human cohabitation conundrums. Sorry I Pooped in Your Shoe is the perfect gift for dog lovers and anyone who appreciates hilarious (and so true!) insights into dog--and human--nature.

So begins Susan Orlean’s sweeping, powerfully moving account of Rin Tin Tin’s journey from orphaned puppy to movie star and international icon. Orlean, a staff writer at The New Yorker who has been hailed as “a national treasure” by The Washington Post, spent nearly ten years researching and reporting her most captivating book to date: the story of a dog who was born in 1918 and never died.

It begins on a battlefield in France during World War I, when a young American soldier, Lee Duncan, discovered a newborn German shepherd in the ruins of a bombed-out dog kennel. To Duncan, who came of age in an orphanage, the dog’s survival was a miracle. He saw something in Rin Tin Tin that he felt compelled to share with the world. Duncan brought Rinty home to California, where the dog’s athleticism and acting ability drew the attention of Warner Bros. Over the next ten years, Rinty starred in twenty-three blockbuster silent films that saved the studio from bankruptcy and made him the most famous dog in the world. At the height of his popularity, Rin Tin Tin was Hollywood’s number one box office star.

During the decades that followed, Rinty and his descendants rose and fell with the times, making a tumultuous journey from silent films to talkies, from black-and-white to color, from radio programs to one of the most popular television shows of the baby boom era, The Adventures of Rin-Tin-Tin. The canine hero’s legacy was cemented by Duncan and a small group of others—including Bert Leonard, the producer of the TV series, and Daphne Hereford, the owner of the current Rin Tin Tin—who have dedicated their lives to making sure the dog’s legend will never die.