The Last Dog on Earth
Encyclopedia
The Last Dog on Earth is a 2003 young adult novel written by Daniel Ehrenhaft. It follows Logan, a lonely 14-year-old boy who adopts a dog from an animal shelter and names her Jack. The pair's relationship is soon threatened by an incurable prion disease
spreading across the nation. Infected dogs become unnaturally violent and bloodthirsty, culminating in the deaths of several people. As public fear heightens and the government intervenes to control the outbreak, Logan struggles to reform his life and remain with Jack.
The Last Dog on Earth largely focuses on the impact of disease and both public and governmental panic. Society is ravaged by fear over the epidemic, endangering Logan and Jack despite the two being uninfected. Additionally, the novel presents a coming of age
story in which Logan, a troubled youth, matures through his relationship with Jack, his only friend.
Despite 17th Street Productions holding the rights to The Last Dog on Earth, Dell Publishing
gained permission to publish it. The company released the novel in hardcover in 2003 and in paperback in 2004. Throughout 2009, the book was published on various e-book readers, including the Nook, Kindle, and several Apple Inc. products. The Last Dog on Earth was a winner of the Texas Lone Star Reading List and recognized by YALSA on a 2006 book list for young adults. The novel garnered mixed feedback from critics, who generally felt that the plot held appeal, but that Ehrenhaft tended to rely on coincidence.
Robert in Newburg, Oregon. Logan does not get along well with Robert or his mother, and holds a grudge against his biological father for leaving when he was young. After an incident at a barbecue
, Robert decides to purchase a Labrador Retriever
in order to teach Logan responsibility. Eager to rebel against his stepfather, Logan convinces his mother to adopt a dog from an animal shelter. He plans to choose an ugly dog and teach it destructive behavior. At the shelter, Logan encounters a young female mutt
who immediately takes a liking to him. Logan adopts the dog and names her Jack after Robert's former dog.
Meanwhile, a new prion
disease named Psychotic Outburst Syndrome (or POS) is affecting dogs, causing friendly pets to become violent. Officials struggle to control the disease and immediately terminate any dogs that catch it. Humans soon begin to contract the disease.
Logan quickly bonds with Jack and values her as his only friend. After getting into trouble whilst attempting to protect her, Logan is sent to boot camp while Jack remains at home. Both he and Jack manage to escape, find each other, and begin traveling together. During their journey, they encounter another dog called White Paws: Jack's brother who has become infected with POS. White Paws attacks Jack and severely wounds her before dying. Logan worries that Jack may have contracted the disease through contact with White Paws. The pair continue their journey until they reach the town of Dayville. Logan faintly remembers that his biological father lives in the town and decides to find his father and confront him.
While Logan is shoplifting food, Jack is found by three men who, fearing that she may be infected, beat her. Logan is arrested and manages to find his father's address at the police station before escaping. He returns to find Jack nearly dead and carries her, attempting to find his father's house, until he faints from exhaustion. He awakens in the house of his biological father, Dr. Craig Westerly, who had found Logan unconscious by his car. Logan learns from Craig that he had not abandoned him and his mother, but that Marianne had divorced him. Logan fears for Jack's life, afraid that she is infected or will be euthanized
. Craig runs tests on the dog and learns that Jack, despite having been in contact with POS, isn't infected: she is immune.
Craig decides to take Jack to a doctor so that a vaccine can be created. During the meeting, Rudy Stagg, a man infected with POS who had been killing dogs in order to contain the outbreak, stumbles into their room. Rudy ignores pleas to spare Jack and shoots at her, but Logan dives in front of the dog and is shot instead. Logan suffers a collapsed lung and falls into a coma
. He awakens weeks later and learns that Jack is on life support
. He says a final goodbye to Jack before her life support is turned off. Jack's immunity to POS leads to the creation of a vaccine and cure, and Logan is finally able to reconcile with Robert, Craig, and Devon Wallace—a childhood enemy whose dog died due to POS. The novel's epilogue, written as a newspaper article, reveals Logan and his family hold a private ceremony to honor Jack.
In order to track particular events and plot points related to POS, Ehrenhaft inserts various messages, faxes, and articles throughout the novel.
, holds the rights to The Last Dog on Earth. Dell Publishing
(a division of the larger publisher Random House
) made arrangements with 17th Street to have it released under their name. On February 11, 2003, the novel was released in hardcover, and was later reprinted in paperback under Dell's Yearling book imprint on June 8, 2004. In January 2009, the novel received a Barnes & Noble Nook
release in the United States
, enabling it to be read on the Nook e-book
readers. The listed file size of The Last Dog on Earth is 2224 KB
for the brand. On January 21, 2009, the book was released for the Kindle
, Amazon.com
's online e-book reader. Its listed file size is 448 KB. On February 3, 2010, The Last Dog on Earth was released on Apple Inc.'s iTunes
. It is listed as being compatible with the iPhone
, iPod Touch
, and iPad
. Later, on February 25, 2009, the novel was released digitally with EPUB
and mobile-specific file types for the Borders Group
e-book app
.
), a division of the American Library Association
. The list is conceived by a committee and compiles various novels that hold appeal to teen readers. The Last Dog on Earth was included in the "What Ails You?" category, comprising literature "about how diseases, disorders, and other general health related symptoms affect our lives". In a 2005 interview, Daniel Ehrenhaft mentioned that a school in Chicago
created an extracurricular activity wherein "kids designed games and gadgets", having been inspired by Logan's hobby of inventing devices.
The Last Dog on Earth has received mixed reception from critics, who have praised the plot, but criticized the heavy use of coincidences to advance the plot. Kirkus Reviews
commented that "happenstance plays a large role in the plot" and thought Ehrenhaft had "a tendency to trot in typecast characters, then summarily drop them", but wrote that it would appeal to "disaster-tale fans with a taste for the lurid". Within the Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy, Volume 47, Rachel Seftel reviewed the novel. She felt that The Last Dog on Earths main strength was the "well-developed and sympathetic protagonist" Logan, but noted that the "memos and several subplots" interspersed between chapters and Ehrenhaft's "[somewhat] heavy-handed" attempts to foreshadow were drawbacks. Seftel concluded that, despite Ehrenhaft's "reach at times [exceeding] his grasp," The Last Dog on Earth was "an interesting and absorbing variation" of the slightly conventional "boy-and-his-dog story."
Prion
A prion is an infectious agent composed of protein in a misfolded form. This is in contrast to all other known infectious agents which must contain nucleic acids . The word prion, coined in 1982 by Stanley B. Prusiner, is a portmanteau derived from the words protein and infection...
spreading across the nation. Infected dogs become unnaturally violent and bloodthirsty, culminating in the deaths of several people. As public fear heightens and the government intervenes to control the outbreak, Logan struggles to reform his life and remain with Jack.
The Last Dog on Earth largely focuses on the impact of disease and both public and governmental panic. Society is ravaged by fear over the epidemic, endangering Logan and Jack despite the two being uninfected. Additionally, the novel presents a coming of age
Coming of age
Coming of age is a young person's transition from childhood to adulthood. The age at which this transition takes place varies in society, as does the nature of the transition. It can be a simple legal convention or can be part of a ritual, as practiced by many societies...
story in which Logan, a troubled youth, matures through his relationship with Jack, his only friend.
Despite 17th Street Productions holding the rights to The Last Dog on Earth, Dell Publishing
Dell Publishing
Dell Publishing, an American publisher of books, magazines and comic books, was founded in 1921 by George T. Delacorte, Jr.During the 1920s, 1930s and 1940s, Dell was one of the largest publishers of magazines, including pulp magazines. Their line of humor magazines included 1000 Jokes, launched in...
gained permission to publish it. The company released the novel in hardcover in 2003 and in paperback in 2004. Throughout 2009, the book was published on various e-book readers, including the Nook, Kindle, and several Apple Inc. products. The Last Dog on Earth was a winner of the Texas Lone Star Reading List and recognized by YALSA on a 2006 book list for young adults. The novel garnered mixed feedback from critics, who generally felt that the plot held appeal, but that Ehrenhaft tended to rely on coincidence.
Plot
Logan Moore is a troubled 14-year-old boy living with his mother Marianne and stepfatherStepfamily
A stepfamily, also known as a blended family or reconstituted family, is a family in which one or both members of the couple have children from a previous relationship...
Robert in Newburg, Oregon. Logan does not get along well with Robert or his mother, and holds a grudge against his biological father for leaving when he was young. After an incident at a barbecue
Barbecue
Barbecue or barbeque , used chiefly in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, New Zealand and Australia is a method and apparatus for cooking meat, poultry and occasionally fish with the heat and hot smoke of a fire, smoking wood, or hot coals of...
, Robert decides to purchase a Labrador Retriever
Labrador Retriever
The Labrador Retriever is one of several kinds of retriever, a type of gun dog. A breed characteristic is webbed paws for swimming, useful for the breed's original purpose of retrieving fishing nets. The Labrador is the most popular breed of dog by registered ownership in Canada, the United...
in order to teach Logan responsibility. Eager to rebel against his stepfather, Logan convinces his mother to adopt a dog from an animal shelter. He plans to choose an ugly dog and teach it destructive behavior. At the shelter, Logan encounters a young female mutt
Mixed-breed dog
A mixed-breed dog, also known as a mutt or mongrel, is a dog whose ancestry is generally unknown and that has characteristics of two or more types of breeds. A mixed-breed may be a cross-breed dog, a random-bred dog, or a descendant of feral or pariah dog populations...
who immediately takes a liking to him. Logan adopts the dog and names her Jack after Robert's former dog.
Meanwhile, a new prion
Prion
A prion is an infectious agent composed of protein in a misfolded form. This is in contrast to all other known infectious agents which must contain nucleic acids . The word prion, coined in 1982 by Stanley B. Prusiner, is a portmanteau derived from the words protein and infection...
disease named Psychotic Outburst Syndrome (or POS) is affecting dogs, causing friendly pets to become violent. Officials struggle to control the disease and immediately terminate any dogs that catch it. Humans soon begin to contract the disease.
Logan quickly bonds with Jack and values her as his only friend. After getting into trouble whilst attempting to protect her, Logan is sent to boot camp while Jack remains at home. Both he and Jack manage to escape, find each other, and begin traveling together. During their journey, they encounter another dog called White Paws: Jack's brother who has become infected with POS. White Paws attacks Jack and severely wounds her before dying. Logan worries that Jack may have contracted the disease through contact with White Paws. The pair continue their journey until they reach the town of Dayville. Logan faintly remembers that his biological father lives in the town and decides to find his father and confront him.
While Logan is shoplifting food, Jack is found by three men who, fearing that she may be infected, beat her. Logan is arrested and manages to find his father's address at the police station before escaping. He returns to find Jack nearly dead and carries her, attempting to find his father's house, until he faints from exhaustion. He awakens in the house of his biological father, Dr. Craig Westerly, who had found Logan unconscious by his car. Logan learns from Craig that he had not abandoned him and his mother, but that Marianne had divorced him. Logan fears for Jack's life, afraid that she is infected or will be euthanized
Euthanasia
Euthanasia refers to the practice of intentionally ending a life in order to relieve pain and suffering....
. Craig runs tests on the dog and learns that Jack, despite having been in contact with POS, isn't infected: she is immune.
Craig decides to take Jack to a doctor so that a vaccine can be created. During the meeting, Rudy Stagg, a man infected with POS who had been killing dogs in order to contain the outbreak, stumbles into their room. Rudy ignores pleas to spare Jack and shoots at her, but Logan dives in front of the dog and is shot instead. Logan suffers a collapsed lung and falls into a coma
Coma
In medicine, a coma is a state of unconsciousness, lasting more than 6 hours in which a person cannot be awakened, fails to respond normally to painful stimuli, light or sound, lacks a normal sleep-wake cycle and does not initiate voluntary actions. A person in a state of coma is described as...
. He awakens weeks later and learns that Jack is on life support
Life support
Life support, in medicine is a broad term that applies to any therapy used to sustain a patient's life while they are critically ill or injured. There are many therapies and techniques that may be used by clinicians to achieve the goal of sustaining life...
. He says a final goodbye to Jack before her life support is turned off. Jack's immunity to POS leads to the creation of a vaccine and cure, and Logan is finally able to reconcile with Robert, Craig, and Devon Wallace—a childhood enemy whose dog died due to POS. The novel's epilogue, written as a newspaper article, reveals Logan and his family hold a private ceremony to honor Jack.
Themes and style
Ehrenhaft deals with several themes over the course of The Last Dog on Earth. Kirkus Reviews commented on the "backdrop of rising governmental and public panic" that interfere with Jack and Logan; despite escaping the disease, they are unable to escape the panic. Rachel Seftel, author of a Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy review, also commented on the "mass hysteria" that arose due to POS and noted the novel's core theme of a troubled youth being taught "valuable lessons until an external force threatens to tear them apart."In order to track particular events and plot points related to POS, Ehrenhaft inserts various messages, faxes, and articles throughout the novel.
Publication history
17th Street Productions, a branch of Alloy EntertainmentAlloy Entertainment
Alloy Entertainment is a book-packaging division of the Alloy Media + Marketing company—an American provider of media programs. Alloy is a leading producer of "chick lit"-style novels created for teenage and young adult audiences...
, holds the rights to The Last Dog on Earth. Dell Publishing
Dell Publishing
Dell Publishing, an American publisher of books, magazines and comic books, was founded in 1921 by George T. Delacorte, Jr.During the 1920s, 1930s and 1940s, Dell was one of the largest publishers of magazines, including pulp magazines. Their line of humor magazines included 1000 Jokes, launched in...
(a division of the larger publisher Random House
Random House
Random House, Inc. is the largest general-interest trade book publisher in the world. It has been owned since 1998 by the German private media corporation Bertelsmann and has become the umbrella brand for Bertelsmann book publishing. Random House also has a movie production arm, Random House Films,...
) made arrangements with 17th Street to have it released under their name. On February 11, 2003, the novel was released in hardcover, and was later reprinted in paperback under Dell's Yearling book imprint on June 8, 2004. In January 2009, the novel received a Barnes & Noble Nook
Barnes & Noble Nook
The Barnes & Noble Nook is a brand of electronic-book reader developed by American book retailer Barnes & Noble, based on the Android platform. The original device was announced in the United States in October 2009, and was released the next month...
release in the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
, enabling it to be read on the Nook e-book
E-book
An electronic book is a book-length publication in digital form, consisting of text, images, or both, and produced on, published through, and readable on computers or other electronic devices. Sometimes the equivalent of a conventional printed book, e-books can also be born digital...
readers. The listed file size of The Last Dog on Earth is 2224 KB
Kilobyte
The kilobyte is a multiple of the unit byte for digital information. Although the prefix kilo- means 1000, the term kilobyte and symbol KB have historically been used to refer to either 1024 bytes or 1000 bytes, dependent upon context, in the fields of computer science and information...
for the brand. On January 21, 2009, the book was released for the Kindle
Amazon Kindle
The Amazon Kindle is an e-book reader developed by Amazon.com subsidiary Lab126 which uses wireless connectivity to enable users to shop for, download, browse, and read e-books, newspapers, magazines, blogs, and other digital media...
, Amazon.com
Amazon.com
Amazon.com, Inc. is a multinational electronic commerce company headquartered in Seattle, Washington, United States. It is the world's largest online retailer. Amazon has separate websites for the following countries: United States, Canada, United Kingdom, Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Japan, and...
's online e-book reader. Its listed file size is 448 KB. On February 3, 2010, The Last Dog on Earth was released on Apple Inc.'s iTunes
ITunes
iTunes is a media player computer program, used for playing, downloading, and organizing digital music and video files on desktop computers. It can also manage contents on iPod, iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad....
. It is listed as being compatible with the iPhone
IPhone
The iPhone is a line of Internet and multimedia-enabled smartphones marketed by Apple Inc. The first iPhone was unveiled by Steve Jobs, then CEO of Apple, on January 9, 2007, and released on June 29, 2007...
, iPod Touch
IPod Touch
The iPod Touch is a portable media player, personal digital assistant, handheld game console, and Wi-Fi mobile device designed and marketed by Apple Inc. The iPod Touch adds the multi-touch graphical user interface to the iPod line...
, and iPad
IPad
The iPad is a line of tablet computers designed, developed and marketed by Apple Inc., primarily as a platform for audio-visual media including books, periodicals, movies, music, games, and web content. The iPad was introduced on January 27, 2010 by Apple's then-CEO Steve Jobs. Its size and...
. Later, on February 25, 2009, the novel was released digitally with EPUB
EPUB
EPUB is a free and open e-book standard by the International Digital Publishing Forum...
and mobile-specific file types for the Borders Group
Borders Group
Borders Group, Inc. was an international book and music retailer based in Ann Arbor, Michigan. The company employed approximately 19,500 throughout the U.S., primarily in its Borders and Waldenbooks stores....
e-book app
Application software
Application software, also known as an application or an "app", is computer software designed to help the user to perform specific tasks. Examples include enterprise software, accounting software, office suites, graphics software and media players. Many application programs deal principally with...
.
Reception and influence
The Last Dog on Earth has been nominated for several awards. The novel was recognized and listed on the Texas Library Association's 2004–2005 Texas Lone Star Reading List. The book was also a nominee for the 2005 Mark Twain Award and 2007 Minnesota Young Reader Award. The Last Dog on Earth was named on "Popular Paperbacks for Young Adults 2006", a list created by YALSA (Young Adult Library Services AssociationYoung Adult Library Services Association
The Young Adult Library Services Association , established in 1957, is a division of the American Library Association. The mission of YALSA is to advocate, promote and strengthen service to young adults as part of the continuum of total library service, and to support those who provide service to...
), a division of the American Library Association
American Library Association
The American Library Association is a non-profit organization based in the United States that promotes libraries and library education internationally. It is the oldest and largest library association in the world, with more than 62,000 members....
. The list is conceived by a committee and compiles various novels that hold appeal to teen readers. The Last Dog on Earth was included in the "What Ails You?" category, comprising literature "about how diseases, disorders, and other general health related symptoms affect our lives". In a 2005 interview, Daniel Ehrenhaft mentioned that a school in Chicago
Chicago
Chicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...
created an extracurricular activity wherein "kids designed games and gadgets", having been inspired by Logan's hobby of inventing devices.
The Last Dog on Earth has received mixed reception from critics, who have praised the plot, but criticized the heavy use of coincidences to advance the plot. Kirkus Reviews
Kirkus Reviews
Kirkus Reviews is an American book review magazine founded in 1933 by Virginia Kirkus . Kirkus serves the book and literary trade sector, including libraries, publishers, literary and film agents, film and TV producers and booksellers. Kirkus Reviews is published on the first and 15th of each month...
commented that "happenstance plays a large role in the plot" and thought Ehrenhaft had "a tendency to trot in typecast characters, then summarily drop them", but wrote that it would appeal to "disaster-tale fans with a taste for the lurid". Within the Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy, Volume 47, Rachel Seftel reviewed the novel. She felt that The Last Dog on Earths main strength was the "well-developed and sympathetic protagonist" Logan, but noted that the "memos and several subplots" interspersed between chapters and Ehrenhaft's "[somewhat] heavy-handed" attempts to foreshadow were drawbacks. Seftel concluded that, despite Ehrenhaft's "reach at times [exceeding] his grasp," The Last Dog on Earth was "an interesting and absorbing variation" of the slightly conventional "boy-and-his-dog story."