A New Book...and we got to meet her!

Before I left my job at the bookstore, I bought a copy of Susannah Charleson's new book, THE POSSIBILITY DOGS.

      

SCENT OF THE MISSING was her first book. In it, we came to know Susannah and her dog Puzzle, the golden retriever she decided to bring into her life and train to work Search and Rescue (SAR). She had questions about her own ability to handle a dog for SAR, which is difficult work in and of itself. She and Puzzle have come to work together beautifully, and I felt privileged to learn about her journey in SCENT OF THE MISSING.*

In THE POSSIBILITY DOGS, she explores whether rescue dogs, dogs who have been through abuse or neglect, can be trained to work as service dogs. Would this be possible? Could she find rescue dogs that were trainable? What if she works at training a dog and he doesn't work out as a service dog? She asks these questions as she meets Jake Piper (that's Jake on the cover of the book!). When Jake came into her life, he was a cruelly neglected, starving puppy. Could Jake become a service dog, even with his rough start in life?

Her discovery that Jake was actually quite well suited to service work is only part of this wonderful book. Susannah talks about all kinds of service dogs, what is involved in assessing and finding dogs suitable for service work in the rescue population, the people who can benefit from service dogs (including perhaps herself), as well as living with and loving dogs as pets. Susannah has Puzzle and Jake, as well as several assorted Pomeranians and a couple of cats. She was, as she did so well in SCENT OF THE MISSING, brilliantly able to capture the joys and challenges of having, training, and loving dogs.

I loved the stories of handlers and how they got matched with dogs who were perfect for them. Bob was one, a traumatized firefighter and his dog, Haska, his psych service dog who can lead him home if he becomes disoriented. And Nancy, whose rescue/service dog Lexie can help calm her panic. And of course there is Jake Piper, who, through the course of the book learns, along with Susannah, how he can become invaluable as a companion and as a service dog. I must admit, there were some tears as I read this book. There was laughing too. She had some great descriptions of the Poms, some of which, she discovered, were also well suited to service work. Some of the other Poms were not, and her life with all of them is rich and wonderful.

Not only have we gotten to read this book, but lucky for us, Susannah Charleson came to town! She and Jake came to Powell's. We got to hear more about her, Jake, and her important work with her organization, Possibility Dogs. And we got to meet her...

     

If you look closely, on the table in front of us, you can see the certificate I got after handselling 100 copies of SCENT OF THE MISSING, which she graciously signed.

Clicking on the book covers will take you to Amazon's web page for each book. Clicking on the underlined book title may take you to the Barnes and Noble page for each book. Purchasing through these links helps support the blog...and the author and her work. You can like us on our facebook page, NOT The New York Times Book Review. You can also like Susannah's facebook pages, Possibility Dogs, Inc, and her Scent of the Missing facebook page. Thanks for stopping by!

*I have talked about and reviewed SCENT OF THE MISSING in several posts on this blog. I chose SCENT OF THE MISSING as my handsell when I worked at the bookstore. I sold over 120 copies of SCENT OF THE MISSING during my tenure there.

Scent of the Missing

Pilot Susannah Charleson worked search alongside canine teams for years before she got a dog of her own to certify for search and rescue.

Enter Puzzle, a golden retriever puppy who joins the author's six (yes, that's 6) rescued Pomeranians and a cat or two, not all of whom were as delighted to have a puppy in the household as she was.

Charleson alternates chapters between home life with the Poms, the cats and Puzzle, and search expeditions both before she got Puzzle and Puzzle's training to become SAR certified.

Puzzle's delightful personality comes through loud and clear in the book. Puzzle is eager, oh so eager to work, extremely motivated by praise. And smart. And fabulous.

Early in her training, she was on a "Find!" command...

As we carefully extract Matt (from his hiding place where Puzzle found him, successfully completing her task), Puzzle steals a piece of burned wood from the debris pile. Matt carries her to the team to show off her success, and she has her head up, her trophy in her mouth. "Good girl!" they all praise. Rooo-wooo-wrroooo, Puzzle rumbles, the universal Golden retriever croon for dig me. She rumbles, wagging around the circle, showing off her burned stick. Wooor-oo-woo. I know the sound, but it's the first time the team has heard it from her. It's the sound of a dog who thinks she's hot stuff.

The book isn't all cute puppy moments, though. Charleson describes some of the darker and harder parts of search. She describes being on the search team for the space shuttle Columbia disaster (before she got Puzzle), how she and many others searched for days and weeks for shuttle debris as well as human remains. She talks about how the dogs came away from that search affected, overcome by the intensity of the search.

The true nature of canine grief - if this was grief - was a mystery to me. I had listened to experienced handlers at this search and opinions were strongly divided. Some said dogs didn't share grief in human terms, but that critical incident stress was as real for them as it was for their human partners. It could overwhelm a dog in the field, or it might take a while to surface. They said that handlers and dogs would need to proceed cautiously across the coming weeks. Easy, motivating practice searches for the dogs. Lots of play. Upbeat rewards. Pushing too hard could create an aversion to the work and shut a dog down from search for good. Perhaps some humans too - though none of us talked about that before we packed the cars to go.

As Charleson shares her experiences with all of her dogs and training Puzzle, incredible descriptions of the dogs, their handlers and their work, I feel as though I have a much greater knowledge of and respect for the incredibly hard and amazing SAR work by dogs and humans. Not only was it fascinating to read about SAR, it was made that much better by being so well written.

I appreciated Charleson's scope of her writing, from vivid descriptions of SAR to Puzzle's growth to how she and Charleson slowly became a real search team, sharing a wide range of emotions.

Clearly Susannah Charleson is lucky to have Puzzle in her life, and Puzzle is lucky to have her. We are lucky she decided to share their lives together with us in this book.

(This was the book I received for St. George's Day. Lucky me!)