Is human intelligence a gift or “an occasionally useful plague”? Two Greek gods granted human intelligence to a group of fifteen dogs, then suddenly these dogs were bewildered and eventually divided into two groups – some flourished with their new skill and some others consciously ran away from it. This deeply moving tale is trying to explore an age old question: “What’s the meaning of life?”

Andre Alexis encapsulates many philosophical questions that intrigue most of us in this delightful but compelling apologue about dogs. Fifteen Dogs is Alexis at his best.  It didn’t only win him a Giller but also good sales.  Being in the force of promoting reading and writing, I know how important this means to authors and how difficult to achieve. But Alexis did it.

Alexis’ brilliant storytelling can surely stimulate many of your senses . You can vividly picture what the dogs experienced, feel what they felt, and smell what they smelled. You don’t have to be a dog lover to enjoy this book. Alexis created some amazing endearing characters – Majnoun, the black poodle who had developed a strong friendship with Nina – his waiting for Nina’s return moves every soul. Prince, our playful poet, roamed along Bloor Street and the beaches and kept his spirits high even when his vision was playing tricks on him. Benjy, cunning but perhaps the most unappealing character, you must see a lot of him in mankind! Your emotions are drawn to these animals naturally while Alexis skillfully unfolds this meditative story with many twists.

Alexis also delves in many debatable concepts, such as individual freedom versus pack conformity and tortured knowledge versus mindless happiness. It’s a metaphysical inquiry about “What does it mean to be alive” – to think, to feel, to love, to suffer, to question and to answer? It is a quest to discover the beauty and the perils of human consciousness.

I must also draw the attention of the Vaughan poetry lovers to the poems composed mostly by Prince and other dogs in the book. Each poem in the book contains one of the dogs’ names – check out the interesting explanation on page 173!

Lastly, I would like to take this opportunity to share another intriguing animal story A Beautiful Truth by Colin McAdams – a quite different writing approach, but you will probably be devastated by little Looee’s story.

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Below are a few questions offered by Coach House Books for discussion:

• Hermes and Apollo’s wager is decided by whether or not one of the dogs is happy at the moment of its death. Is it fair to evaluate the quality of one’s life by the quality of one’s end-of-life? How accurate of an evaluation?
• Who is more cruel, the gods or the dogs? Why?
• Some readers find themselves more moved by the deaths of the fifteen dogs than they would have been if it had been fifteen humans. Why do we sometimes have more compassion for animals than people? Can you think of examples of this in the real world?