Nigel My Family and Other Dogs by Monty Don

I picked up this book just before the quarantine in the emporium created by the charity Books for Dogs in Umbertide. 

Nigel My Family

and Other Dogs by Monty Don is not just a wonderful book but it tells the life essence of the author, that, gardens apart, are dogs. As Monty Don confesses in his book, his family has always had dogs around: sometimes troublemakers, as you will read, but undoubitedly his family has never lived without dogs for a second.

When he went to the university he had Gretel; a symbiotic relationship. When he studied, read, when he went to a pub, wherever he went, Gretel was with him. When he started the relationship with Sarah, once he called her Gretel, the name of his dog. 

Nigel arrived when Monty Don a mature man. Nigel is a solid dog, a golden retriever, so the perfect dog for having company and affection. Nigel was and is more than this because he will be part of his documentaries enjoying to be on screen, and as Don confesses, he became with the time a real star, receiving for Christmas's time more Christmas's greetings than the rest of his family. He is appreciated and often people asks to mr Don: How's Nigel? 

This friendly and captivating book is precious also because will let you understand the most common errors committed by dog owners, and how to treat our dogs.

Don remembers breakfast. He trained Nigel in a way that he hadn't to pretend anything from him in terms of food while he was having breakfast. Nigel learnt that; simply, he had to wait for his turn.

The gardens created with the time by Monty Don in his big house have been the most diversified ones and the most creative ones. I was impressed by the Lime Walk. Monty Don planted wagons of lime trees, creating a corner of Paradise; although as you will see his gardens and so favorite spots of Nigel are so many.

When Monty Don wrote this book Nigel was 8 years old; at the moment he should be 11. Don has also treated the thematic of the departure of Nigel and where he will be buried.

Don lost many dogs, and Gretel maybe the most significat one, maybe, considered the end of his past and the arrival of a new existence.

With the time, and with Nigel starting to ageing the idea of another golden retriever, this time a girl called Nellie. Character completely different from the one of Nigel, it sounds an adventure.

The beauty of Monty Don is that he is in grade to understand dogs very well and with him there is the certainty that these pets will be well trained and will become disciplined creatures. As Don admits he doesn't love when people imagine these pets like children of humans. They are dogs, with their own desires and with their own character. Each of them is different.

I found interesting the reconstruction of the arrival of dogs in our society as pet companions and the creation of the golden retriever breed but also how dogs think in the immediate and in the past.

The book is plenty of pictures, imagines of Nigel, and all the rest of dogs owned by Monty Don new and old.

The cover is absolutely beautiful, a sign of extreme happiness between a dog and a human being.

Beautiful, great reading! 

Anna Maria Polidori