Author: Chloe Shaw

Chloe Shaw is a Connecticut memoirist who uses a lifetime with dogs to examine attachment, grief, family, and the meaning people make through caring for animals. What Is a Dog? moves among memories of childhood pets, the dogs she raised with her husband and children, and the difficult season in which several losses arrived close together. Flatiron Books released the memoir during 2021, presenting it as Shaw's literary debut. Its structure is reflective rather than instructional: individual animals become markers of particular homes, relationships, and stages of adulthood, while the recurring question in the title opens into questions about loyalty and identity. Macmillan records that Shaw lives in Connecticut alongside her family and two dogs, a domestic setting that also anchors the narrative. An audio edition is narrated by Cissy Jones. Shaw's approach is intimate but observant, giving each remembered dog a distinct place in a larger account of how households change over time.