Last week I read Paul Jones' highly recommended Extinction Point. Jones does a wonderful job of setting up a story of the Earth being xenoformed, and adds a heroic dog.
A strange red rain has fallen on every major population center on Earth. Things rapidly start to change and not for the better. Suddenly Emily Baxter, a journalist in NYC, might actually be the only person left alive. She spends this first installment making terrible survival choices that leave you cringing. Luckily, she is saved by a dog.
Extinction Point was the kind of book that made me want to look away, but I could not put it down. The dog is clearly going to be the Earth's savior.
Extinction Point (Extinction Point Book 1), Paul Jones