Marley & Me (2005) is about a hunting dog that wasn't. Marley is a male yellow Labrador retriever. Me is John Grogan, a professional and talented scribe...talented enough, that is, to take a standard issue self-indulgent, tragicomical family pet story and turn it into a New York Times bestseller.

Back in an earlier millennium, I wrote a magazine article entitled "Dear Mr. Van Hauen: I Have a Complaint About the Dog You Sold Me." Same theme, but my male yellow Labrador retriever was a hunter and, for the record, the only very best dog that ever roamed and fertilized the planet. The New York Times never batted an eye. So I began my perusal of Marley & Me with a modicum of resentment.

It has all my ingredients?adorable puppy, zany canine antics, habits ranging from naughty to bawdy to borderline felony, unrequited loyalty, yaddada yaddada. Go figure, "loopy" Marley chewed things, dug holes in furniture, dined on garbage and urchin-flung food, and he preferred toilet water to tap water. What a scamp.

As the book progressed and house pet Marley (named after Rastafarian, wisdomweed disciple and reggae king Bob Marley because it is not against the law for people who own nonhunting hunting dogs to name them any dopey thing they want to) exceeded American Kennel Club standards for size and obedience class standards for attendance (he was banished after two sessions), my resentment ratcheted up a notch. Marley's seldom and barely restrained rambunctiousness cost Me and Mrs. Me a small fortune in vet bills, furniture and house repairs. As I read, I was compelled to scribble marginal notes that amounted to handling advice and admonitions: "Don't talk to the dog in sentences." "Be firm!" "Use a pinch collar!!" "PUT DOWN THE TOILET SEAT IF IT BOTHERS YOU THAT MUCH!!!" By page 130, my invectives were marked literally by increasingly dense and deeply incised exclamation points.

Nothing much is told in this best seller that hasn't happened with the countless bazillion other pet dogs that are adopted by na?ve and adoring families. For the first two thirds or so of this 292-page book, reading about young Marley's adventures had a Disney quality to it, despite Me's disingenuous, droll grousing about his "chewer of couches, slasher of screens, slinger of drool, tipper of trash cans."

Rather than causing urban and household pandemonium, Marley, a lummox of a sporting dog, ought to have been casting over hill and dale and sniffing out surplus game birds or paddling through rough waters to retrieve drifting wigeon or performing other heroic dog stuff. But no. Instead, Me took this perfectly usual, undisciplined Labrador and, by some sneaky, secret journalist thing, drew me into his "life and love with the world's worst dog." I was fully placated by the time Marley was nine and Me reported that his dog "had earned his place in our family. Like a quirky but beloved uncle, he was what he was. He would never be Lassie or Benji or Old Yeller; he would never reach Westminster or even the county fair. We knew that now. We accepted him for the dog he was, and loved him all the more for it."

The last third of the book is entirely predictable. It relates that adoption of and by a gassy, uncouth, unwaveringly cheerful, always forgiving, furry comedian comes with a price tag...it's called dog years. But this part is so superbly written that I forgave Me for not turning Marley into a Master Hunter. And I nearly forgave The New York Times' arbiters of best sellers for their earlier millennium oversight.

Published by William Morrow, an imprint of HarperCollins, Marley & Me retails for $21.95. It is easy to find and a wonderful read.