At the start of this story I thought "Oh, another talking cop dog story. Okay, the last one was good, so lets see what happens", and I enjoyed it quite a bit. I liked the interaction between Eugene and Francisco as well as the crime drama aspects of it, although if Mur had not tipped me off at the beginning that this was about a dog I may have thought Eugene had some form of autism and enhanced senses at first.
In the closing Mur comments that the details about Eugene and his origins are not that important, and I find myself disagreeing a little bit. While I did like the story, I found myself wondering exactly what a dogman was. Does Eugene look like the wolfman (he mentions having fur a couple of times)? Is he a human body with a dog's brain (and if so, why does the dog's sense of smell and hearing still work)? This did not ruin the story for me, but I kept hoping we would get some sort of physical description so I could solidify my mental image of him. This was hardly a story-killer for me, but it was distracting.