One for the dogs: Ruth Shaw’s new book celebrates love between dogs and their humans

“It could have been terrible, but it wasn’t,” Manapōuri-based author Ruth Shaw said.

The book launch went “really, really well”.

“I thought if one dog started barking, then all the other dogs here would start barking, and how are you going to keep them quiet? But they were all so well-behaved,” she said.

Shaw released a new book titled Bookshop Dogs on Sunday in Te Anau, in the presence of 15 dogs of all sizes.

The non-fiction book was an anthology of stories of the dogs that came to her bookstores in Manapōuri, and a memorial to her german shepherd dog Hunza, who she had while doing youth work in Invercargill, she said.

“Many people turn up at the bookshop with dogs and there are a lot of dogs that live in Manapōuri and Te Anau. Their owners come to the bookshop, but also people travelling turn up with dogs in campervans, cars, dogs on little trolleys on the back of bikes, and some of them turn up in baskets on bikes,” she said of her visitors.

“Every dog has got a personality. I just thought I’ve got to write about them, because I love having dogs at the bookshop, and all of those dogs have a story to tell and so do their owners,” she said.

Speaking about Hunza, Shaw said: “He was more than my sidekick. He was my support. And he was known by all the schools and all the kids and a lot of the gang members knew Hunza … I also had to write about when we had to have him put down.

“That’s one thing that comes through very clearly when you talk to people with pets – that they dread the day that they’re going to lose their pet and … so I had to write about that because Hunza had to be put down years ago and yet the emptiness is still there.

“Whenever I see a german shepherd I immediately think of him,” she said, “the bond between the owner and the dog is really special.”

At the launch, “the biggest dog was Tui, who is a bernese mountain dog. They are found in Switzerland. And the smallest one was Tayla. She’s a little jack russell, a very cheeky, proud little dog. And then we had the tourist dog Rafferty, who is an irish wolfhound and weighs 70 kilos,” Shaw said.

Shaw’s first book was titled The Bookseller at the End of the World, and is a compelling memoir that begins with the Two Wee Bookshops that she runs.