Bring On the Dogs (Books Part 2)

One of my not-to-be-missed annual events the past couple years has been the Tucson Festival of Books.  The festival is held on the University of Arizona main campus the weekend before Spring Break and has been a Tucson mainstay since its debut in March 2009.

The two-day festival features hundreds of authors and has drawn crowds of 135,000 the past couple years.  I'm so grateful my adopted hometown fosters a love and appreciation for books, authors and reading.  It is a fantastic event and has remained a free event thanks to tremendous supporters and sponsors, and an army of volunteers who help make it all happen.

The 2017 festival was March 11-12 and I spent both days going from one author event to another.  Five events on Saturday and four events on Sunday.  Two of my sessions on March 11 led to the dog-palooza of reading that followed.

One session was "Rescuing Animals" featuring Andrew Bloomfield and his book Call of the Cats: What I Learned About Life and Love from a Feral Colony  and Laura Coffey and her book My Old Dog: Rescued Pets with Remarkable Second Acts  .  The other session was "Dogs: Wild and Working" with Laura Coffey, Dan Flores and his book Coyote America, and Maria Goodavage and her book Secret Service Dogs. 

It was My Old Dog: Rescued Pets with Remarkable Second Acts that started it all for me.

How can you NOT love the face on this cover?!?!

I'll try to summarize this as best I can.  Laura Coffey is a writer, editor, and producer for TODAY.com.  She learned about this talented, professional pet photographer in California named Lori Fusaro, who was volunteering her time at local animal shelters taking pictures of senior dogs to increase their web appeal and chances of being adopted.  Here is a link to that original 2013 Today.com story that Laura wrote.  Jill Rappaport from NBC News ended up doing a segment on Lori too.  Here is a link to the news story and I highly recommend watching it.

Unbeknownst to both Laura and Lori at the time, their shared passion for rescue dogs, particularly older dogs, would launch them on a project that would become the book My Old Dog.  The very first chapter in the book is on Lori's senior rescue dog Sunny.  She talks a bit about Sunny in these two YouTube videos: Why Old Dogs and Silver Hearts.    

Laura and Lori reached out to pet rescue groups around the country, looking for remarkable, inspiring stories of rescued senior dogs that had extraordinary second chapters.  They traveled around the country to meet those dogs and their owners.  Laura wrote the profiles and Lori took the photos, which come together in a beautiful and inspiring book.

They met senior dog Remy that keeps company with nuns; senior dog Marnie, a social media darling; senior military working dog Chaney that got reunited with his handler; senior dog Rocky, living in a nursing home and providing comfort to residents with dementia; retired greyhound Jimmy Chee, providing the perfect companionship for a man on kidney dialysis, and blind senior dog Healey, who found love and a new life.  There's even a story on the senior dog named Einstein that George Clooney rescued. 

So, admittedly, I can get a bit obsessed about a particular topic and I'll follow the rabbit trail that unfolds.  This one book led to the reading of ten other books, quite a bit of web searching and a good amount of inspiration.  

After hearing Laura at the two author sessions -- she is extremely personable, funny and passionate about this topic and the book -- I bought three copies and had her personalize them.  One was for Tom and me; one was for my parents who rescued a female Golden Retriever Abby that had spent two years chained up in the backyard of her former home; and our dear friends Phil and Rhonda, who rescued an amazing Australian Cattle Dog KayDee from a puppy mill where she had been used for breeding. 

I searched the web, finding the Today.com story and the NBC Nightly News piece, links shared above.  When I read the chapter on Bretagne, the last known surviving 9/11 search and rescue dog, I went and found the story that Tom Brokaw did on her and her owner/handler returning to Ground Zero 13 years after the attacks.  Here is the link if you want to watch the story.  [An update - I was checking the links in this blog in June 2022 and saw that the Today Show piece is no longer at the link I had but I did find this piece from a 20th anniversary special of 9/11.  I thought I'd add it here.] 

 

In my searching I also found stories about Bretagne dying last year at the age of 16.  She was given a hero's send off.  Here is a link to one of those stories too. 

My Old Dog also features a chapter on David Rosenfelt, whom I'd never heard of.  He's a former movie executive now mystery novelist and probably certifiably crazy dog person.  His author events are usually arranged in partnership with a local animal shelter and an adoption opportunity.  

Laura talked about David Rosenfelt during the author sessions and highlighted the work he and his wife have done, and continue to do, in rescuing senior dogs.  They have personally found homes for more than 4,000 sheltered senior dogs through their organization -- the Tara Foundation -- and have welcomed hundreds into their own home.  

He's written a couple nonfiction books about their experiences with rescued senior dogs.  I quickly read both.  My favorite was Dogtripping, which is about their cross-country move (California to Maine) with 11 volunteers and their 25 rescue dogs in three RVs.  The other book Lessons from Tara shares wisdom they've gained from Tara and the many other dogs they've helped over the decades.   

Also in the mix, around this same time, I read Soldier Dogs by Maria Goodavage.  Maria was on one of the author panels so I'd gotten interested in her books too.   If you're looking for some inspiration just look up stories on YouTube about military dog handlers being reunited with their dogs from Afghanistan and Iraq.  Theirs is a VERY special bond.

A special bond between David Rosenfelt and his Golden Retriever, Tara, led to the book mentioned above and her being immortalized in David's Andy Carpenter mystery series, serving as Andy's canine sidekick, who will never age and never die.  

It is these books -- the Andy Carpenter series -- that were exactly what I needed once our move towards Italy was gaining in speed and stress.  From April 22 to August 4, eight of the nine books I read were by David Rosenfelt.  One was Lessons from Tara and the other seven were from the Andy Carpenter series.

Reading that got me through the great move of 2017!

Light-hearted, entertaining mystery books, with dogs, were just what the doctor ordered.  This was not the time to be reading Tolstoy! 

I'm so grateful to have met Laura Coffey at the Tucson Festival of Books.  To be introduced to her amazing book My Old Dog, which I think every dog lover needs to go out and buy!  Then to be introduced to the work of David Rosenfelt, who seems to be a great person in real life and writes with wit, great dialogue and good pace.  Andy Carpenter and Tara turned out to be great company when our lives were packed up, shipped halfway across the world and a bit upside down.     

So, here's to the dogs!  Both the real and fictionalized ones.  And in honor of Laura, Lori, and David's work, if you're thinking about getting a dog in 2018, how about considering rescuing a senior dog from a local shelter.  I have a feeling you won't regret it!