The $60,000 Dog: My Life with Animals

A candid, compelling memoir that illuminates our human need for the companionship of animals.

Why is it considered irrational, even crazy, to love the animals in our lives as much as the humans? In The $60,000 Dog, Lauren Slater brilliantly and unforgettably interrogates this question by revealing how an emotionally intense bond with animals shaped the course of her development as an individual. With unmatched verbal acuity and bite, Slater revisits many of the most challenging, redemptive, and defining events in her life—from her childhood experience at a horseback-riding camp run by an abusive family to the marital difficulties that arose when she decided to neuter the family dog against her husband’s wishes. In recounting a love of animals that has at times driven her to extremes—for example, attempting as a rebellious young vet tech to get plastic surgery for an injured swan—Slater makes sense of our human dependence on animals, refuting the guilt that we may feel for loving our pets “too much.”