The Last Dog On Earth - Reception and Influence

Reception and Influence

The Last Dog on Earth has been nominated for several awards. The novel was recognized and listed on the Texas Library Association's 2004–2005 Texas Lone Star Reading List. The book was also a nominee for the 2005 Mark Twain Award and 2007 Minnesota Young Reader Award. The Last Dog on Earth was named on "Popular Paperbacks for Young Adults 2006", a list created by YALSA (Young Adult Library Services Association), a division of the American Library Association. The list is conceived by a committee and compiles various novels that hold appeal to teen readers. The Last Dog on Earth was included in the "What Ails You?" category, comprising literature "about how diseases, disorders, and other general health related symptoms affect our lives". In a 2005 interview, Daniel Ehrenhaft mentioned that a school in Chicago created an extracurricular activity wherein "kids designed games and gadgets", having been inspired by Logan's hobby of inventing devices.

The Last Dog on Earth has received mixed reception from critics, who have praised the plot, but criticized the heavy use of coincidences to advance the plot. Kirkus Reviews commented that "happenstance plays a large role in the plot" and thought Ehrenhaft had "a tendency to trot in typecast characters, then summarily drop them", but wrote that it would appeal to "disaster-tale fans with a taste for the lurid". Within the Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy, Volume 47, Rachel Seftel reviewed the novel. She felt that The Last Dog on Earth's main strength was the "well-developed and sympathetic protagonist" Logan, but noted that the "memos and several subplots" interspersed between chapters and Ehrenhaft's " heavy-handed" attempts to foreshadow were drawbacks. Seftel concluded that, despite Ehrenhaft's "reach at times his grasp," The Last Dog on Earth was "an interesting and absorbing variation" of the slightly conventional "boy-and-his-dog story."