When New York Times bestselling author Peter Zheutlin approached his 65th birthday, he decided to embark on a cross-country journey with his beloved dog, Albie, a rescue he had adopted six years earlier. By the time they returned home, they had covered 9000 miles, meandering through towns large and small, taking in grand vistas, and visiting old friends as well as unfamiliar places.
With “no particular agenda,” as the author notes in his Introduction, he set out to rediscover the U.S. But the journey was about much more than revisiting the vastness and diverse topography and “staggering grandeur” of the U.S.; it was an attempt to make peace with the inevitability of mortality and the unknowable mysteries of this life. We, the readers, glean our own lessons about pausing long enough to fully appreciate life and to live (as dogs do) in the here and now.
As an Amazon review notes, The Dog Went Over The Mountain (published 2019) is a book that “will delight dog lovers, baby boomers and anyone who seeks to experience life on the open road with a four-legged companion.”
About the author: Peter Zheutlin is the author of the New York Times bestseller Rescue Road: One man, thirty thousand dogs and a million miles on the lost hope highway, and Rescued: What second-chance dogs teach us about living with purpose, loving with abandon, and finding joy in the little things. As a journalist, his work has appeared in major publications including The Boston Globe, The Christian Science Monitor, The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, and AARP Magazine.
