They are often our best friends and share a special bond with us. But what if your dog was more than just a pet? In Dogs for Life, we share the stories of animals with very important jobs to do. Heart-warming and inspiring, emotional and funny, Dogs for Life shows how some amazing animals are changing the lives of the humans who love them.
Dogs for Life is one of the latest additions to the brilliant Quick Reads series. Initially launched to encourage and inspire reluctant readers, the series quickly acquired much broader appeal with its short page-turners: thrillers, sci-fi, the true-life tales of ordinary and extraordinary people – there is something for everyone. This one, of course, is for dog-lovers. And if you aren’t a dog-lover already, you will be by the time you reach the end of the book. The book begins with a foreword by John Burns, founder of Burns Pet Nutrition in Kidwelly, who uses profits from his pet-food company ‘to make a difference to the lives of people and their animals.’ One of the projects funded by the John Burns Foundation is the Burns By Your Side children’s reading scheme, under which volunteers and their dogs visit schools, colleges, libraries and other educational settings to hear children read. As Grace Vobe, who volunteers on the scheme with her dog, Hoola, writes, ‘A dog doesn’t judge or sigh and look at its watch when a child makes a mistake. Why wouldn’t a child want to read to a dog.’ Why not, indeed. It’s a highly successful scheme, and Vobe’s account of it is both moving and uplifting. There’s also an introduction by Alison Stokes, who reminds us how much dogs have done and still do for us, and not just as adored pets and life companions: carrying messages and sniffing out wounded soldiers in the First World War, detecting bombs in Afghanistan, sniffing out drugs and explosives for the police, helping disabled people with everyday tasks. There are Guide Dogs for the Blind, therapy dogs for children with autism, bio-detection dogs to detect diseases… It’s a list that is constantly growing. And Dogs for Life contains six wonderful real-life stories to prove it. There is Tudor, the guide dog, who helps Angharad Paget-Jones to live a full life after losing her sight at the age of just 21; Hoola, the school reading dog mentioned earlier, who not only helps children to learn to read, but has also given her owner a new sense of self and purpose after a life-changing accident; Nico, the therapy dog – ‘a living, breathing, prancing teddy bear’ – who did so much to ease the pain and distress of Jamie-Louise Wallace’s 11-year-old son, who had a rare, life-threatening condition; Blue, the husky cross rehomed from the streets of Romania by Ann Cooper, who watches her ‘grow from a scared, shivering creature into a confident, calm companion’ – calm enough to become a therapy dog visiting care homes; Pippa, an 18-month-old Labrador-Dalmatian cross that Hannah Stokes gets from the dog rescue for her son, Johnny, when he is diagnosed with a brain tumour just a week before his eighteenth birthday; and Zed, the injured racing greyhound who helps reduce stress for students at exam time. They are all remarkable stories that will make you smile, bring tears to your eyes, warm your heart and lift your spirits. And perhaps inspire you and your dog to join the volunteers!
~Suzy Ceulan Hughes @ www.gwales.com
Please note that ePub files can now be opened on Kindle.
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