Dogged advice about romance

THERE was a time when Merrill Markoe worried that Stupid Pet Tricks, the goofy segment she created for “Late Night With David Letterman,” would be the sum total of her obituary. Forget her comedy career and the armload of Emmys she won as head writer for the show. People being publicly humiliated by their pets -- that would be her defining moment.

Like it or not, with “Walking in Circles Before Lying Down,” her sweet and funny new novel about a girl and her talking dog, Markoe has added even more paw prints to her bio. Dawn Tarnauer’s adult life could have gotten off to a better start. Her mother’s a narcissist whose latest excuse for ignoring Dawn is a get-rich-quick scheme that has caught Wal-Mart’s interest -- the Every Holiday Tree. Dawn’s father, a rockabilly wannabe who left the family when she was 10, is a serial adulterer. He shows up periodically, in need of money, compliments on his fab ‘50s wardrobe or safe haven from an angry wife.

Small wonder that Dawn, who has felt invisible most of her life, jumps into two marriages, way too young and way too fast. A crummy boyfriend follows the collapse of marriage No. 2 and -- surprise! -- he dumps Dawn. She winds up moving to Malibu to share a trailer with her younger sister, Halley, who’s been dating accused wife-killer Scott Peterson.

The book is perfectly fine up to this point, the setup to a nice little romance. You’ve got love and loss and real estate problems, good women acting dumb and dumb men behaving badly. It’s all told with Markoe’s trademark mix of dark humor and quirky vulnerability, and she skillfully steers clear of chick-lit cliche.

But when Dawn, still heartbroken, turns to her pit bull mix, Chuck, for comfort, things really take off. She’s sobbing into his doggie neck that he’s the only living creature who gives a damn about her when Chuck changes their relationship forever.

“Chuck stared at me, his eyes locked to mine. ‘Come on! You must have at least suspected there was someone else,’ he said. ‘Couldn’t you smell her on his pants?’

“My crying stopped abruptly as I stared down at him. His mouth wasn’t moving. So why did I think he had spoken? Was it the early-morning drinking?”

After that, we’re in prime Markoe territory -- small moments with big laughs. The story swings through Los Angeles like a bloodhound chasing down a scent. Halley becomes the most annoying -- and successful -- life coach in the city. Dawn, however, takes dating tips from her dog. As a result, she finds herself fleeing from a swingers party at the home of a butcher, who, it turns out, Chuck liked because he had access to meat. “He seemed happy,” Chuck says. “He smelled like liver and blood. Seemed like a win-win situation.”

Writing from a dog’s point of view has a distinguished pedigree. Virginia Woolf gave it a whirl with a genteel biography of Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s cocker spaniel in “Flush.” Harlan Ellison’s novella “A Boy and His Dog” gave the antihero a telepathic canine sidekick to help him survive the aftermath of a nuclear war. Last year, Pam Houston took a break from cowboys and heartbreak with “Sight Hound,” a wolfhound’s diary of his efforts to get his mistress happily married off before he dies of cancer.

Markoe’s mongrels, by contrast, are just dogs with voices. Chuck and his equally verbal friends don’t want to save the world. They don’t even really want to save Dawn. They like her, sure, and hope she’s happy, but their main concerns are peeing and pooping and tearing up the furniture. They’re earnest and loyal and Zen-like, and they yearn for nothing more than someone who will let them eat their own vomit.

If you’ve ever walked a male dog, you’ll understand Markoe’s emphasis on bathroom habits. Step. Lift. Step. Lift. Sniff. Lift. Lift. What the heck are they up to? Dawn asks Chuck this very question.

“ ‘How can you have to pee so often?’ I said, as he jumped in the front seat.

“ ‘Well, there’s two kinds of peeing,’ he said. ‘There’s regular peeing, because you have to pee. And then there’s auxiliary competitive peeing. For acquiring an empire. I’m all about the real estate.’ ”

After the butcher fiasco, Dawn balks at following any more of Chuck’s advice. His growly reply rings true for lovers of all species.

“ ‘So?’ he argued. ‘I think almost everything you want me to do is crazy. The only reason I do half of what I do every day is that it matters to you. Nearly all of it goes against my instincts.’ ”

In the end, Chuck’s instincts win out. He’s a pragmatist whose presence keeps the happy twists with which Markoe ends her slight but funny book from veering into sentimentality. He’s also why, when you’ve read the last page, the next thing you really want to curl up with is a good dog.