Lives of the Monster Dogs (1997) is a novel by Kirsten Bakis first published by Farrar, Straus & Giroux.

A group of elegant monster dogs in top hats, tails, and bustle skirts become instant celebrities when they come to New York in 2008.

Refugees from a town whose residents had been utterly isolated for a hundred years, the dogs retain the nineteenth-century Germanic culture of the humans who created them.

They are wealthy and glamorous and seem to lead charmed lives – but they find adjusting to the modern world difficult, and when a young woman, Cleo Pira, befriends them, she discovers that a strange, incurable illness threatens them all with extinction.

When the dogs construct their dream home, a fantastic castle on the Lower East Side, and barricade themselves inside, Cleo finds herself one of the few human witnesses to a mad, lavish party that may prove to be the final act in the drama of the lives of the monster dogs.