Love That Dog Summary & Analysis

Jack’s self-consciousness shines through here. He’s willing to try his hand at writing poetry to please his teacher, but he’s desperate to hide his efforts from anyone else. Then, the poem itself raises many questions similar to those “The Red Wheelbarrow” brought up. What is the significance of this car? Why does Jack decide to write about it, instead of any number of other mundane objects?

Jack’s unwillingness to say why the blue car matters is humorous, and he makes a fair point—Williams, “the wheelbarrow guy,” didn’t say why anything in his poem mattered. Instead, “The Red Wheelbarrow” leaves this question up to the reader to answer, much the same way that Jack does. However, Jack also seems somewhat defensive, which suggests there might be more to the blue car than Jack’s willing to let on at this point.

The “snowy woods” poem is “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening” by Robert Frost. Jack doesn’t understand this one because the speaker’s behavior seems odd to him—the speaker notes that he has a long way to go before he can sleep, so stopping in the cold makes little sense. For this reason, Jack doesn’t like the poem much. However, he does borrow language from the poem when he notes that the blue car had “miles to go / before it slept,” and that it was in a hurry. This begins to imbue the blue car with a sense of foreboding, which is intensified when Jack refuses to give any more insight into its significance.

This poem, “The Tyger,” was written by William Blake in the early 1790s. Here, Jack learns that poetry doesn’t necessarily have to make sense—it can be worthwhile to read because it sounds nice, has a good rhythm, or is just fun to recite. The poem is actually about God and religion, but Jack doesn’t need to know that to appreciate it. Describing the blue car with “tiger sounds” allows Jack to give a bit more context to the car: Jack saw it speed past him, so he wasn’t in it, and the driver wasn’t coming to see him.

Jack is becoming a bit more confident in his abilities, thanks to what seems like Miss Stretchberry praising his poems. Readers can only infer that this is what’s happening, though, based on Jack’s responses.

It’s a big moment for Jack when he acknowledges that his poems look nice on the board. With this change of heart, he begins to accept that maybe he is capable of writing poetry. However, by not putting his name on the poems, Jack gets to experiment with being a poet without having to worry about fielding his classmates’ opinions about the poems.

Jack’s return to being surly and defensive suggests that Miss Stretchberry’s request that students write poems about pets has touched a nerve.

Jack’s trust in his teacher is growing. He’s not insistent on keeping this pet a total secret, even as he refuses to write about it. And when he notes that Miss Stretchberry is certainly going to ask why he doesn’t want to write about it, it’s a sign that Jack is getting to know his teacher better. He knows where her concerns lie: in asking students to explain things.

It remains unclear why Jack is so adamant that he can’t write about the pet he used to have. It’s possible that Jack experienced some trauma connected to this pet—after all, he doesn’t have the pet anymore. Further, the fact that Jack no longer has this pet and has been writing about a speeding blue car seems suspicious; these two things may be connected.

Jack is referring to Valerie Worth’s collection of children’s poetry, Small Poems, which describes common animals and household items in verse. Jack appreciates these poems because they describe recognizable animals—he prefers poetry that reflects his lived experience. And this paves the way for Jack to finally reveal that his former pet was a yellow dog, much like the one Worth described. In general, introducing the yellow dog in this way highlights how common of an experience it is to own a dog. Jack’s tone suggests that he loved his dog and enjoyed having him around.

Jack continues to expand his idea of what a poem can be. He described reading the small poems in verse; therefore, his description can indeed be considered a poem. It may be that Jack simply doesn’t see the subject matter as “real” poetry; he may believe that poems need to be about more concrete things. In any case, Jack is clearly worried about impressing others, since he doesn’t claim the poem as his own work because his classmates might not agree that his writing is a poem.

Jack continues to become more confident in his work. This becomes especially clear when he asks Miss Stretchberry to more accurately copy his line spacing—he wants to have artistic control over his poems, even if he’s not entirely convinced he’s writing poetry. Then, Jack begins to share a bit more about his yellow dog. Readers don’t see Miss Stretchberry’s dog picture, but it’s significant that Jack insists it’s not a good representation of his yellow dog. This comment foreshadows that later on in the novel, Jack will probably share what his yellow dog looked like.

This poem by Robert Frost is called “The Pasture.” Jack’s ire is palpable: cleaning a spring and fetching a calf seem to be so far outside of Jack’s lived experience that he simply doesn’t find the poem interesting or understandable. In fact, Jack is so confused by the lifestyles Frost portrays in his poems that he humorously suggests that the poet (whom Jack seems to equate with the poem’s speaker, which isn’t always the case) simply has too much time to frolic in nature. Frost’s poems tend to portray rural, farming lifestyles (as did “The Red Wheelbarrow”), so this may simply reflect that Jack lives in a city or in suburbia.

Here, Jack makes a breakthrough and starts to think more critically about what makes a poem—and what makes a poem good. A poem, as Jack suggests here, can simply be a way of conveying a mood or a picture, as Frost does as he describes a winter wood or a pasture, and as Williams describes a wheelbarrow. Frost and Williams, incidentally, did set out intentionally to be poets, unlike Jack. But still, Jack recognizes that by following some standard poetry conventions (like using line breaks), he, too, can play at writing poetry. Finally, Jack’s poems seem to be pretty popular among his classmates, which seemingly makes Jack begin to wonder whether he should start putting his name on them.

This is the first of Jack’s poems that seems to come entirely from his own head; it’s not necessarily styled after another poem, and there’s no indication that Jack is responding to either an assignment from Miss Stretchberry or another poem. So, this poem represents a leap forward for Jack: he now understands that he too can “mak[e] a picture / with words” and share this experience of adopting a dog with other people. On another note, as Jack describes adopting the yellow dog, the adoption itself is a happy memory—the dog is clearly thrilled. But Jack can’t separate that from the heartbreak of being at an animal shelter and seeing dogs who are going to be euthanized if nobody adopts them. This begins to suggest that experiences with animals, like Jack’s experience adopting and owning his yellow dog, can be simultaneously joyful and tragic.

Here, readers get a bit more insight into who Jack is as a person: he’s kind and wants to make people happy, so he doesn’t want his classmates to have to think about dying dogs. He also continues to try to take more artistic control of his poems, as when he specifies what color paper Miss Stretchberry uses for this one and gives his poem a title of his own creation.

Jack is simultaneously demonstrating confidence in himself and trust in his teacher. He wants to have a say in what his poems look like, but he also likes and appreciates Miss Stretchberry enough to give her the benefit of the doubt when she doesn’t copy his poems exactly.

Jack doesn’t say outright why he likes Arnold Adoff’s poem “Street Music.” But he seems to like it because even if he doesn’t live in a noisy part of town, the “street music” Adoff describes is nevertheless recognizable to Jack. And this, in turn, leads Jack to take ideas from the poem—such as that a place produces its own kind of music—and describe his own street. However, though Jack doesn’t explicitly mention the blue car, he uses the same lines from “Passing by Woods on a Snowy Evening” to describe the cars that speed down his street. This creates a sense of foreboding.

Here, Jack learns that poems don’t have to be entirely serious—they can express a sense of humor and be more playful. This continues to reframe poetry as accessible and fun for readers, not an artform that has to be stuffy and formal. That these poems also make Jack’s brain “pop[]” suggests that he finds them inspiring, and that he may be more willing to try his hand at writing more playful poetry.

Indeed, Jack takes the opportunity to portray his yellow dog. And just with the other poems, this one has a sense of humor: the dog is slobbery and clearly happy, if it’s wagging its tail.

Jack’s attitude in this passage marks a major turning point. Finally, he’s willing to let his classmates know that he’s written something. It’s possible to attribute this change to Miss Stretchberry’s quiet encouragement throughout the school year. She’s made it clear that she’s not going to push Jack and has instead let him decide on his own time to consider himself a poet.

While Jack opens by describing his embarrassment, he’s much more focused on his classmate’s poem about the tree. By wondering if his classmate is self-conscious too, Jack acknowledges that he and his classmates are all dealing with some of the same anxieties surrounding sharing their work. But by asking Miss Stretchberry to pass along his message to his classmate, Jack also does something important: he tries to help his classmate develop confidence in their abilities, just as he’s done with Miss Stretchberry’s help.

While Jack has been getting increasingly excited about Miss Stretchberry’s poetry selections over the last few months, this is the first time he’s been so excited to take a poetry book home to continue reading poems he likes. And Jack would ideally like to share his enthusiasm with all his classmates, again helping them develop confidence and learn to love poetry just like he is. On another note, the reason Jack gives for liking “Love That Boy” is that it again mirrors Jack’s lived experience. Seeing himself reflected in the poetry also gives Jack the confidence to finally share his yellow dog’s name: Sky.

Myers’s poem seems to have made Jack feel more comfortable describing Sky and the good times they shared (recall that for whatever reason, Jack no longer has Sky). In Jack’s description, Sky reads as a beloved neighborhood fixture—he wasn’t just Jack’s buddy, but he also ingratiated himself with all the other neighborhood kids.

It’s a sign of how much Jack idolizes Myers that he’s so afraid to anger the poet by using the poet’s language. Moreover, now that Jack has discovered this role model, he’s more willing to write poems beyond what Miss Stretchberry assigns—the secret poem seems to be quite personal to Jack, if he’s so concerned with keeping it a secret. This reflects Jack’s growing enthusiasm about reading and writing poetry.

Miss Stretchberry teaches Jack how to ethically borrow words from other people: he just needs to make it clear that he was inspired by another poet, rather than insisting that the resulting poem is entirely his own work. Along with this idea, Jack’s enthusiasm for poetry continues to grow. Since he hasn’t had many nice things to say about other poets, asking about Myers and if Myers might even be able to visit Miss Stretchberry’s class indicates a significant shift in Jack’s mindset. Asking about the poet himself also highlights that Jack is beginning to associate the poems he reads with the people who write them—those poets can be mentors to Jack, in addition to Miss Stretchberry.

It’s unclear what, exactly, Miss Stretchberry has asked Jack to do. But in any case, Jack has reverted back to how he was at the beginning of the school year: unconfident in his own abilities.

Jack reveals that he doesn’t think he’s good enough to write Myers directly. This highlights how badly he wants to impress the poet. It also shows that Jack has a long way to go as he develops his confidence as a writer, while also highlighting some specific skills Jack thinks he should learn before he considers himself worthy of addressing Myers directly. These include becoming more proficient at spelling and learning how to use the computer to type.

Jack’s nervousness shines through in this letter. He doesn’t think he’s worthy of asking someone whom he considers a “real” poet (that is, a published writer) for a favor, so he automatically assumes that Myers is going to say no. However, he also acknowledges that poets are real people, not gods. Like everyone else, they have to contend with the grind of daily life and fit writing in among other chores and responsibilities.

Finally, Jack gets to the point: he’d like to ask Myers to visit his school. That Jack gets to the point of being willing and able to ask at all speaks to Miss Stretchberry’s power as a mentor. Jack only agreed to write this letter with what seems like a lot of encouragement from her. Then, Jack humorously reveals how young and naive he is when he suggests that his letter will take Meyers a long time to read. As written, the letter only takes a couple minutes to read at most, which speaks to where Jack is in his learning journey: reading is still sometimes a struggle for him.

Though Jack is pretty sure Myers won’t get back to him, that doesn’t mean he’s not on edge waiting for a response. And again, Jack shows that he trusts Miss Stretchberry by not feeling like he has to mask his enthusiasm to look cool.

As Jack discovers here, writing a letter to a published author isn’t as simple as just sending the letter. It can take time. But even though Jack dramatically insists they should forget they ever asked Myers to visit Miss Stretchberry’s class, this is still an important part of Jack’s poetry education—he’s learning how to engage with the established poetry community. And in the meantime, Jack has more poetry to discover and his own poetry to write.

Jack is exhausted trying not to think about his letter to Myers. Nevertheless, he’s becoming more comfortable with poetry as he writes this poem. Using a simile like this—comparing his brain to “a squashed pea”—suggests that he’s internalizing more poetry conventions and tools, like figurative language.

As far as Jack is concerned, what he wrote isn’t a poem. However, per Jack’s own understanding of what makes a poem a poem, this isn’t entirely true: it uses short lines, and it reflects his lived experience. He may simply be experiencing a bit of a crisis of confidence.

Here, Jack takes control of his own education and of his own poems. If he learns to type, he won’t have to pester Miss Stretchberry to make sure the spacing on his poems is just right—he can do it himself, thereby putting into the world exactly what he wants to.

Once Jack gets a taste of using the computer to type, he can’t get enough. He recognizes that word processing is going to help him become a better poet, because he can create poems that look professional much more easily than he can now, when Miss Stretchberry is the one to type and print his work. Typing is also a skill that will benefit Jack more generally and make him into a better, more competent writer.

Jack is only willing to reveal what happened to Sky now that he feels totally in-control of his poems, which suggests that poetry has become a tool for him to process his memories and emotions. The poem itself is extremely sad: Sky might have been lucky that Jack and his dad adopted him, but that luck wasn’t enough to protect him from the danger that Jack has been hinting at for much of the novel. Instead, this idyllic afternoon playtime is interrupted by the speeding blue car, which hits Sky and doesn’t stop. This suggests that the car itself has symbolized Jack’s unresolved trauma—writing about the car and not explaining why suggests that Jack has continued to dwell on this tragic accident.

The accident is made more tragic by the fact that Sky dies of his injuries. It’s no small thing to witness a pet die—and Jack, it seems, has been trying to process this trauma since Sky died. His poems for Miss Stretchberry have been one way for him to do that.

Interestingly, Jack doesn’t argue that what he wrote isn’t a poem, showing that he now thinks of himself as a real, capable poet. Rather, his concern is that he’s going to make people sad, something he emphatically doesn’t want to do.

By putting his name on this poem, Jack takes ownership of both the poem and the event it describes. This suggests that he’s finally come to terms with Sky’s death—he’s willing to share it with others, and he’s also willing to brainstorm ideas to help make it less traumatic for others (such as Miss Stretchberry’s brownies).

Once Jack seems to move past the trauma he suffered when Sky died, he gets the opportunity to channel his energy into being really excited for Myers’s visit. Poetry, in this sense, helps Jack recover, and it then gives him a reason to keep moving forward and discovering how exciting poetry can be.

Over the course of the novel, Jack’s language has changed. He began writing with straightforward language, but now his language is more colorful as he describes the “blooming” bulletin board and the “sprouting” bookshelf. Additionally, using these specific words that describe growth and change reflect how Jack himself (and presumably, his classmates as well) has evolved: he now appreciates poetry and is excited to meet a real published poet, something that would not have sparked enthusiasm back in September.

Jack still sees himself as somewhat unworthy of Myers’s attention, but Jack is genuinely excited here. He’s more worried about making sure Myers has a great experience in his class than he is about getting in trouble for borrowing some of Myers’s words.

Meeting Myers is a transformative moment for Jack. It shows him that Miss Stretchberry was right—Myers isn’t the sort to get angry at a kid for liking his poetry and borrowing his words—and it also makes him feel supported and inspired. This suggests that especially with this boost, Jack will continue to love and explore poetry long after Myers’s visit.

This time, there’s no indication that Miss Stretchberry had to convince Jack that he should indeed write this letter. Jack has gained more confidence and is now comfortable writing and thanking his favorite poet. The way Jack describes Myers also suggests that the visit has had a major effect on Jack, if not the rest of the class. Myers, in Jack’s telling, has a way of making kids feel supported and like they matter, something that helps establish Myers as a mentor and an idol for Jack and other kids like him.

Answering the students’ questions is a way that Myers can show the kids he cares about them and that their thoughts matter. It seems as though Jack was actually asking if Myers would be offended by Jack’s poem that borrowed Myers’s words (notably, the poem itself hasn’t been revealed to readers yet). But the fact that Jack decides to include the poem in this letter, thereby sharing it with Myers and the reader, shows how comfortable he now is with Myers and his own abilities. He knows now how to properly borrow someone’s words. Furthermore, Jack also suggests he’s going to continue to explore poetry long after the novel’s close, if he now considers himself Myers’s biggest fan.

“LOVE THAT DOG” borrows most of the language from “Love That Boy”; Jack simply makes it about his beloved pet and casts himself as the poem’s speaker. This poem is noteworthy in that Jack positions his love for Sky as normal and natural, and this poem also isn’t tainted at all by the speeding blue car and Sky’s death. Rather, this poem memorializes Sky and the love that Sky and Jack shared. From this, the reader can infer that Jack’s previous poem about Sky’s death has helped him process his trauma and grief over the incident. Indeed, this final poem’s subject matter seems to reflect an important change in Jack’s mindset: he’s realized that he has the choice to remember Sky joyfully rather than sorrowfully, and that poetry is an outlet for him to express that joy.