No More Dead Dogs

Wallace Wallace, the primary point-of-view character and protagonist of No More Dead Dogs, introduces himself by telling a story his dad told him years ago about fighting in the Vietnam War. As Wallace got older, he realized his dad didn’t fight in the war and that his father tends to lie. The lies were a source of great strife between his parents, and Wallace countered the lies with the attitude of “the more Dad lied, the more I told the truth” (2). Ever since he was a little kid, he’s told the truth, even when it wasn’t nice.

Wallace’s parents got divorced three years before the story begins, and Wallace has not lied in those three years. For eighth-grade English, his class reads the fictional novel Old Shep, My Pal by Zack Paris. The teacher assigns a short essay where students should write how they felt about the book, their favorite character and part, and describe how they’d recommend the book. Wallace writes how he disliked everything about the book and wouldn’t recommend it to anyone, which infuriates his teacher, Mr. Fogelman.

Mr.