his much we know for sure: There was a war. There was a soldier. And there was a dog. I discovered the dog by accident in 2010, when I was researching Unraveling Freedom, my book about the American home front during World War I. The animal’s story seemed so incredible that at first I did not believe it could be true. How could one dog have been so capable, survived so many battles, gained such fame? Surely someone had made him up. But the story was true, at least large parts of it, and it grabbed hold of me in the way good stories do: with a smile, coming to mind unexpectedly, and showing up with growing frequency. Doggedly, one could say. Two years later my publisher asked me to invent three nonfiction book ideas to share at a party, two fake and one true. I trotted out Stubby as part of the mix. And that’s how this book came into being, as a strategic joke at a gathering of librarians and publishers. I think Stubby would have liked that twist, or at least J. Robert Conroy would have, as the devoted keeper of Stubby and his fame. Some people might say that I am an unlikely candidate to write a book about a dog. For one thing, all of my other titles have focused on the more serious sides of history. Plus, full disclosure, I haven’t owned a dog in 40 years. All of the dogs from my childhood met tragic ends. Pooh the cocker spaniel, hit by a car. Benet the Chihuahua, disappeared. Checkers the Dalmatian, hit by the mail truck. Checkers II, another Dalmatian, put to sleep due to illness. Truth be told, in the decades since, I’d lost interest in dogs. My heart belonged to cats and cats alone. As I began to research the life of Stubby, I rather thought my lack of affection for dogs might add objectivity to my work. But I would be dishonest to maintain this claim. Instead, Stubby charmed me just as he had charmed the guests at that party and almost everyone he ever met. Halfway through my research I found myself checking
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