Scent of the Missing: Love and Partnership with a Search-and-Rescue Dog

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER. A “haunting meditation on trust, hope, and love” by a woman who adopts and trains a Golden Retriever puppy to become a search-and-rescue dog (People).

In the wake of the Oklahoma City bombing, Susannah Charleson clipped a photo from the newspaper of an exhausted canine handler, face buried in the fur of his search-and-rescue dog. A dog lover and pilot with search experience herself, Susannah was so moved by the image that she decided to volunteer with a local canine team and soon discovered firsthand the long hours, nonexistent pay, and often heart-wrenching results they face.

Once she qualified to train a dog of her own, she adopted Puzzle, a strong, bright Golden Retriever puppy who exhibited unique aptitudes as a working dog but who was less interested in the role of compliant house pet. Scent of the Missing is the story of Susannah and Puzzle’s adventures as they search for the missing—a lost teen, an Alzheimer’s patient wandering in the cold, signs of the crew amid the debris of the space shuttle Columbia disaster—and unravel the mystery of the bond between humans and dogs.

SUSANNAH CHARLESON is the author of the New York Times bestseller Scent of the Missing and The Possibility Dogs. A flight instructor, service dog trainer, and canine search-and-rescue team member, Charleson began a non-profit organization called The Possibility Dogs, which rescues, trains, and places dogs with people suffering “unseen” disabilities. She lives in Texas with her ever-growing brood of animals—canine, feline, anything that needs rescuing.