To Say Nothing of the Dog: How We Found the Bishop's Bird Stump at Last is a 1997 comic
science fiction novel by Connie Willis. It takes place in the same universe of
time-traveling historians she explored in her story Fire Watch and novel Doomsday Book.

To Say Nothing of the Dog won both the Hugo and Locus Awards in 1999,[1] and was nominated
for the Nebula Award in 1998.[2]

The story takes place in 2057 at Oxford University. A machine which makes time travel possible
has been developed, but time travel itself is used primarily as a tool for historical
research. Although millions were spent to develop time travel as a commercial venture,
it turned out to have no profit potential. The natural laws of the "time continuum"
prevent anything of significance from being brought from the past to the future, and
also act to keep time travelers away from historically critical events, such as the
Battle of Waterloo. Any attempt to break these laws result in the time machine
malfunctioning: either it fails to work at all, or the time traveler goes to the
wrong time or place. In extreme situations the continuum can correct paradoxes by
changing the course of events in minor ways to keep the eventual outcome the
same.
The novel opens just as one time traveler appears to have violated the laws of
the continuum by bringing a cat from Victorian times to 2057.
For more information see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/To_Say_Nothing_of_the_Dog

Another book I haven't read, coming from a list compiled by Boris.
You all know the dog I've featured, she was mooching on our front
balcony
I'd been there trying to photograph a kookaburra who flew away before
I had a chance to take a photo.