Saturday, August 30, 2014

The Dog Stays in the Picture: Life Lessons from a Rescued Greyhound, by Susan Morse

Open Road Integrated Media, ISBN 9781497643925, September 2014

After mourning the death of their Australian shepherd, Arrow, and with their youngest two children about to start college, it's time to add a new dog to the family. Or so Susan Morse thinks. Husband David is not so sure. He's especially not sure they want a rescue greyhound. But since David had more or less sprung Arrow on her as a surprise, all those years ago, Susan figures it's her turn to choose, and she's become fascinated by greyhounds.

Lilly is sweet, loving, intelligent, wary of men, suffering from separation anxiety... She's not going to be an easy dog, but Susan is in love. She sets to work helping Lilly adapt to her safe, comfortable new life, and to weave her into her and David's new life with the children out of the house, leaving Susan free to travel with him to his acting jobs on location.

Then Susan gets ambushed by a health crisis threatening to upend all her plans and hopes.

This is a short, charming memoir. Susan has a sense of humor about the challenges she faces, and the members of this family love and respect each other in all their individual quirkiness. Her storytelling style is cheerfully non-sequential, and family history and the challenges of raising a secure, happy family around the challenges and unpredictability of David's acting career are interwoven with the challenges and issues of Lilly's emotional recovery and Susan's own health problems.

Recommended.

I received a free electronic galley from the publisher via NetGalley.

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