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What a handful of 'unadoptables' taught me about service, hope, and healing
by Susannah Charleson
For her first book, Susannah Charleson was praised for her unique insight into the kinship between humans and dogs, as revealed through canine search and rescue. In The Possibility Dogs Charleson chronicles her journey into the world of psychiatric-service and therapy dogs trained to serve the human mind, a journey that began as a personal one. After a particularly grisly search led to a struggle with PTSD, Charleson credits healing to her partnership with search dog Puzzle. Inspired by that experience and having met dogs formally trained to assist in such crises, Charleson learns to identify abandoned dogs with service potential, often plucking them from shelters at the last minute, and to train them for work beside hurting partners, to whom these second-chance dogs bring intelligence, comfort, and hope.
From black Lab puppy Merlin, once cast away in a garbage bag, who stabilizes his partner's panic attacks to Ollie, the blind and deaf terrier who soothes anxious children, to Jake Piper, the starving Pit Bull mix who goes from abandoned to irreplaceable, The Possibility Dogs illuminates a whole new world of canine potential.
"Starred Review. This is the rare book that can change minds about the reality of animals' emotional lives." - Publishers Weekly
"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." - Kirkus
This information about The Possibility Dogs was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Susannah Charleson is the author of the New York Times bestseller, Scent of the Missing, as well as a flight instructor, service dog trainer, and canine search-and-rescue team member, who most recently began a non-profit organization called The Possibility Dogs, which rescues, trains, and places dogs with people suffering "unseen" disabilities. She lives with her search partner, Puzzle, a golden retriever certified for the recovery of missing persons, her service dog partner-in-training, Jake Piper, a German shepherd-pit bull-poodle mix, as well as a rabble of pomeranians, a chihuahua-cairn terrier mix, and two cats.
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