A review by crysania
Nop's Trials by Donald McCaig

5.0

When I first heard about this book, I thought it would be another memoir about a guy and his dog. It turned out that it was fiction. As I read the beginning of it, I thought "I'm not really going to get into it." I thought it was just going to be downright weird, to be honest. The dog's "talk." Not to people, but to each other. And not only do they talk, but they talk in a highly formalized way, using "thy" and "thou," but in the context of short, clipped sentences. It turned out that I was wrong about enjoying the book. It didn't take long until I was absorbed into it. The "dog language" actually began to make sense -- it separated their "speech" from that of the humans.

Nop's trials tells the story of a sheepdog (border collie) named Nop who is owned by a man named Lewis. Lewis uses him as a stockdog on his farm and also gets him into sheepdog trials. On Christmas Day, Nop goes out running with a friend's dog and the two disappear. It turns out they're stolen. The rest of the story goes back and forth between telling the story of Lewis's search that takes him from Virginia to Ohio and back again a few times to Nop's various adventures as he's sold and given away time and time again. Some of the people he lands with are decent folks. Some not so much.

The story was really touching and amazing, but also tragic at times. I really loved this book.