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Summary
Summary
" A moving page-turner of a memoir from an accomplished trainer who shifts from the work of search and rescue to that of psychiatric service dogs. "-- The Boston Globe
After a grisly search-and-rescue operation led to troubling consequences for author Susannah Charleson, she found that her relationship with Puzzle, her search dog, made a surprising contribution to her own healing. Inspired by that experience, Charleson learned to identify abandoned dogs with service potential, plucking them from shelters and training them to work with disabled human partners, to whom the dogs bring assistance, comfort, and hope.
Similar to her New York Times bestselling first book, Scent of the Missing , Charleson's The Possibility Dogs goes beyond the science that explains working canines to tell the stories of the dogs themselves. Like Merlin, a black Lab puppy who had been thrown away in a garbage bag and now stabilizes his partner's panic attacks. And service dog Jake Piper, a formerly starving pit bull mix who went from abandoned to irreplaceable. This heartwarming combination of memoir and research is sure to both inform and inspire.
"For everyone who is interested in the human animal bond, this book is essential reading. Learn how service dogs can provide emotional support for people who are in great need."--Temple Grandin, author of Animals Make us Human and Animals in Translation
"You don't have to be an animal lover to be moved by this beautifully written and impassioned account of the author's work rescuing dogs from shelters and training them to be service animals . . . This is the rare book that can change minds about the reality of animals' emotional lives."-- Publishers Weekly (starred review)
Reviews (4)
Publisher's Weekly Review
You don't have to be an animal lover to be moved by this beautifully written and impassioned account of the author's work rescuing dogs from shelters and training them to be service animals. Some go on to assist the visually impaired, while others help soldiers returning from combat to deal with post-traumatic stress disorder. Others aid sufferers of obsessive-compulsive disorder, allowing them to stay on task. While plenty of writers have shared their experiences of animal empathy, few have done so as well as Charleson (Scent of the Missing). An emotional highpoint is her description of Lexie, "a very light blond retriever from a bad situation who could use a little rescuing herself." Charleson teams Lexie up with Nancy, an online friend who has treatment-resistant depression. Nancy is given new opportunities to function by her service animal. This is the rare book that can change minds about the reality of animals' emotional lives. (June) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
Kirkus Review
The compassionate account of the author's experiences with psychiatric service dogs. For years, Charleson (Scent of the Missing: Love and Partnership with a Search-and-Rescue Dog, 2010) was a dedicated canine search-and-rescue professional. After a particularly "ugly" search in 2004, she was diagnosed with critical-incident stress by one doctor and PTSD by another. Before she could sink too far into mental illness, Puzzle, the golden retriever puppy she had been training as a search-and-rescue dog, "badgered [her] free" from the fear that was ruling her life. Charleson eventually learned that the demand was growing for canines with the ability to help and support people with mental and emotional problems. The expense involved in "raising, training and providing excellent care" for psychiatric service-dog candidates, however, made them too costly for many individuals. Determined to show that owners could teach suitable dogs to become their assistants, Charleson went into shelters to locate a dog with the resilience, intelligence and good nature necessary to do psychiatric service work and that she could train on her own. She found her candidate in a starving pit bull terrier puppy she named Jake Piper. Drawing on her encounters with many extraordinary psych service dogs and their handlers, as well as her own experiences with mental illness, Charleson trained Jake to distract her away from anxiety-based behaviors like compulsive stove checking. The story she tells about her dogs is remarkable, but those she includes about other canines--like Merlin, the black lab who could sense the onset of panic attacks, and Ollie, the blind and deaf terrier who brought comfort to anxious children--are equally amazing. An inspiring and refreshingly optimistic reminder about the untapped possibilities that exist in the relationships between humans and dogs.]] Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Booklist Review
Flight-instructor Charleson's well-received Scent of the Missing (2011) drew from the intimacy between search-and-rescue dogs and their owners. This book partly concerns therapy dogs, who comfort the elderly, convalescent, and traumatized. But the main subject is the less-familiar psychiatric-assistance dog, who knows when to respond to his or her owner's subtlest behavior. By approaching or pressing against their owners, these dogs interrupt such chronic conditions as blackouts, agoraphobia, vertigo, and obsessive-compulsive behaviors. The case studies are interesting and include frequent public skepticism toward tormented yet normal-seeming people assisted by dogs. In tragic irony, Charleson will likely need a psychiatric-assistance dog as her kidney disease spreads. She started Possibility Dogs, a nonprofit that helps people rescue homeless dogs and then self-train them for psychiatric assistance. Readers wearied by long descriptions of dog personalities might find this book a slog. And many will wonder: Why not use money spent flying to Los Angeles to save a 15-year-old, blind, deaf, arthritic dog with help from successful actor friends on a poor, promising student instead?--Carr, Dane Copyright 2010 Booklist
Library Journal Review
Charleson (Scent of the Missing) takes readers on a new journey after a particularly gruesome search-and-rescue case involving 40 dogs that had been tortured, which left her suffering from PTSD. After noticing that Puzzle, her search-and-rescue dog, was helping her through these episodes, and following a chance encounter with a firefighter suffering from traumatic brain injury, Charleson became curious about psychiatric service dogs. This deeply moving and personal story chronicles the author's experiences learning to identify potential service dogs in shelters and discovering her own need for therapy dogs, especially as she also struggles with kidney disease. Eventually, Charleson forms a service dog nonprofit called Possibility Dogs. Her story not only underlies the strength of the human-dog connection but also shows that rescued dogs from all sorts of backgrounds and breeds (Charleson's therapy dog is a pit bull mix she rescued), even those with limitations (Ollie, a blind and deaf terrier, helps children overcome anxiety) can fill critical roles for humans in need. -VERDICT A touching and inspirational story that will appeal to animal lovers.-Lisa Ennis, Univ. of Alabama at Birmingham (c) Copyright 2013. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.