This is probably more unfair than most of my reviews, which are always more about my experience during the book or trying to look past that experience at the qualities on the page. So hard to get past that bias and be fair to, in this case, Garth Stein. 
 I found nothing to love in this book, but I had mostly decided to hate it based on its cover. "Dog on the cover" means that eliciting an emotional response is more important than telling a good story. The book will have more tragedy than comedy. There will be at least one scene that is actually a litmus test to determine if you're capable of emoting and worthy of human society. Failing that test means walling yourself off from the rest of the world reading "Old Yeller" and "Where the Red Fern Grows" until you're ready to safely interact with people again. 
 This review is particular unfair of me when I consider my vehement dislike of 1Q84, which I dismissed because I felt the author set himself up as the reader's adversary from the outset. In this case, I saw the cover and determined that I would play the adversarial role - Stein would not break me, I would not let him win. 
 And he didn't win. He might have been able to win if I hadn't so accurately judged this book by its cover. There were no surprises at all. Each twist is telegraphed by several chapters and fell pretty much exactly as expected in exactly the place I knew it would. Same story packaged up in a different metaphor and racing doesn't stir anything in me, really. 
 So, while this is certainly my most cynical rating to date, this is a literary rule I will live by henceforth. No dogs on covers. Never.