The Underdogs: Children, Dogs, and the Power of Unconditional Love – A Biographical Exploration of Service Animal Bonds via Scientific Research - Softcover

Greene, Melissa Fay

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0062467239 ISBN 13: 9780062467232

Publisher: Harper Large Print, 2016

Synopsis

From two-time National Book Award nominee Melissa Fay Greene comes a profound and surprising account of dogs on the front lines of rescuing both children and adults from the trenches of grief, emotional, physical, and cognitive disability, and post-traumatic stress disorder.

The Underdogs tells the story of Karen Shirk, felled at age twenty-four by a neuromuscular disease and facing life as a ventilator-dependent, immobile patient, who was turned down by every service dog agency in the country because she was “too disabled.” Her nurse encouraged her to tone down the suicidal thoughts, find a puppy, and raise her own service dog. Karen did this, and Ben, a German shepherd, dragged her back into life. “How many people are stranded like I was,” she wondered, “who would lead productive lives if only they had a dog?”

A thousand state-of-the-art dogs later, Karen Shirk’s service dog academy, 4 Paws for Ability, is restoring broken children and their families to life. Long shunned by scientists as a manmade, synthetic species, and oft- referred to as “Man’s Best Friend” almost patronizingly, dogs are finally paid respectful attention by a new generation of neuroscientists and animal behaviorists. Melissa Fay Greene weaves the latest scientific discoveries about our co-evolution with dogs with Karen’s story and a few exquisitely rendered stories of suffering children and their heartbroken families.

Written with characteristic insight, humanity, humor, and irrepressible joy, what could have been merely touching is a penetrating, compassionate exploration of larger questions: about our attachment to dogs, what constitutes a productive life, and what can be accomplished with unconditional love.

About this title

About the Author

Melissa Fay Greene is the author of Praying for Sheetrock; The Temple Bombing; Last Man Out; There Is No Me Without You: One Woman’s Odyssey to Rescue her Country’s Children; and No Biking in the House Without A Helmet. Her honors include two National Book Award nominations, a National Book Critics Circle Award nomination, the Robert F. Kennedy Book Award, the Chicago Tribune Heartland Prize, the Southern Book Critics Circle Award, the ACLU National Civil Liberties Award, the Hadassah Myrtle Wreath Award, the Salon Book Award, Elle Magazine’s Readers’ Prize, the Georgia Author Award, and a Dog Writers of America Award. She is a current Guggenheim Fellow.

From the Back Cover

The Underdogs tells the story of Karen Shirk: felled at age 24 by a neuromuscular disease and facing life as a ventilator-dependent patient, she was rejected by every service dog agency in the country as “too disabled.” Her nurse encouraged her to raise her own service dog, and Ben, a German shepherd revived her.

A thousand dogs later, Karen Shirk’s service dog academy, 4 Paws for Ability, is restoring hurting children and their families to life. Melissa Fay Greene tells the stories of children with disabilities, their struggling parents, and their marvelous dogs. Into these modern wonder tales, she weaves the latest scientific discoveries about the inner lives of dogs. The frontiers of the human/dog bond are explored here with insight, compassion, humor, and joy.

Edition details

• Publisher: Harper Large Print
• Publication date: 2016
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0062467239
• ISBN 13: 9780062467232
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 480