This treasury features heartwarming photographs and touching stories of dedicated working dogs who have gone above and beyond the call of duty and proven themselves as true heroes.
This special collection of dog stories and photographs features four-legged heroes who have worked side by side with soldiers, searched the wreckage of natural and man-made disasters, changed families' lives through emotional support, and administered aid around the world and at home in the United States. Heart-warming photographs and touching anecdotes bring to life thirty-eight caring canines who have served the people who mean the most to them, from a German Shepherd who leads a blind man on his marathon training mssion to a belly rub-loving Sheltie who supports at-risk youth in the classroom. For anyone who has experienced the extraordinary affection of a dog, Loyal is a lasting celebration of the joys of canine companionship.
Rebecca Ascher-Walsh is a journalist and the devoted owner of Buddy, a pit bull she rescued from a shelter near her home in New York City. She volunteers at a shelter in Manhattan and is the founder of the Deja Foundation, which assists small organizations helping dogs rescued from high-kill shelters.
This heartwarming book includes 38 stories about dogs who have been rescued from shelters. All of the dogs were on the euthanasia list when rescued. Each dog has become an invaluable asset to it’s community and it’s family. They all work as certified therapy dogs - helping veterans and children, as well as assisting police, becoming accelerant detectors for fire departments, visiting nursing homes, hospitals, schools, and much much more. Beautiful color photographs of the dogs are included with each dog’s story.
It’s so inspiring to read about the dogs whom no one wanted, yet have become trusting, loyal, and very lovable companions when given the chance. I hope that anyone considering getting a dog would get one from a local shelter. These dogs deserve a chance at a good life where they are loved and cared for. The dogs written about in this book are proof of their unconditional devotion, trust, and love.
Loyal is a lovely book chock full of beautiful photographs and stories about our four-legged friends. I’m a sucker for pretty much any story about any dog, it’s true… What makes this book so special is that the stories are not just focused on dogs but on our relationship with dogs and how dogs help us to improve our relationships with ourselves and one another. This book is a beautiful illustration of both the complexity and simplicity of our relationships with these beautiful animals who literally live for our love and companionship.
There is great variety in the stories told in this book; there are stories about emotional support dogs, cancer detection dogs, dogs that help teach fire safety to children, and even dogs that protect cute little penguins! I loved reading about Hudson, one of the “railroad puppies” whose story I followed so closely back in 2012 when he and two of his littermates were found nailed to railroad tracks in Albany, New York. It also warmed my heart to read about Drago and other therapy dogs that offered comfort to the teachers and children in Newton, Connecticut as they returned to school after the tragic shooting that took the lives of twenty children and six staff members. And who wouldn’t fall in love with Glory the Bloodhound? She’s a real-life pet detective!
Loyal is a fast read but one that can also be savored. You’ll want to go back and re-read your favorite stories again and again. It’s the perfect gift for any dog lover.
This is the second book I have read from Rebecca Ascher-Walsh and I like it even more than the first. I do however still wonder why they stopped at 38 inspiring stories of bravery, heroism, and devotion of dogs. Why not 40? Her other book ‘Devoted’ also stopped at 38.
When selling, it is said to only give the sizzle and not the steak, but when writing my reviews, I like to give out bites of steak that were particularly flavorful.
From the story of Bandit, a Great Dane with a severe leg deformity saved from euthanasia but now comforts soldiers and their families:
People with deformities are especially quick to connect with Bandit, Brownfield says, because of his. “One day we were in the hospital and a little girl was in a wheelchair, and Bandit came up and put his paw on her lap. She grabbed it and turned to her father, this big burly marine, and said, ‘See, Dad? I'll be OK. Bandit has a deformity and he's still a hero. Her dad just started sobbing.”
From the chapter on Alli, a cattle dog rescued and trained to locate endangered species:
Within one day of training, Alli was showing exceptional skill at identification. She quickly learned to recognize 300 individual samples in an exercise that asked the dogs to distinguish individual bears by their scat, ignoring the 20 or so samples that weren't correct and signaling to the one that was. Though identifications can be verified with genetics, DNA testing was much more expensive at the time Smith began work with Alli than rescuing a dog and taking a day to teach it what to do. The training is simple: Give the dog a sample of scat to smell. Then, continue to move it farther away until it is hidden or mixed in with other samples. When the dog Identifies it correctly, throw a ball as a reward, Repeat.
From the story about Xxon, a German Shepherd who assists an Air force vet who was blinded by an IED: Xxons gifts are certainly logistical. He is trained in useful commands as nuanced as “find the counter” at a hotel of store; “find the empty seat” in a waiting room; or “find inside” in a parking lot. But his companionship is equally valuable therapeutically. “It's difficult to return from combat, and a disability only compounds it,” Malarsie explains. “If | didn’t have Xxon, no one would talk to me."
The story titled Niko tells of an inmate who was given a dog as a pilot program where the prisoners transform rescue dogs into well-behaved companions ready for adoption:
To those who think it’s not a good thing to have the men give up their dogs and be heartbroken, Jacobs-Meadows says: “Life carries with it unexpected happenings that involve tragedy and loss. And the lesson here is that if you keep doing the next right thing and making the next right decision, the next great joy is right around the corner.” In the case of Canine CellMates, that joy is getting another dog and falling in love all over again.
From the story of Glory, a bloodhound trained to find lost pets:
The bloodhound is also an ace at locating cats, although Coldiron says that when they are working in Southern California, most felines have met their fate at the hands of predators by the time she is asked to help. There is comfort nevertheless: “People call me when they want closure,” she explains. “It’s so much better to know than still be wondering, five years later.”
I chuckled a little at this bit from JJ, a terrier mix trained to detect the onset of a mastocytosis attack which results in allergic reactions from everything from stress to heat to illness.
Shortly into JJ’s training, Cunningham decided to test JJ and another terrier she was working with alongside three golden retrievers in the program, using a stopwatch to see how long it would take the dogs to detect a diabetes scent and alert the owner. The finding: The terriers needed only the time it took to get to the sample and then to her. ‘The goldens, on the other hand, “would go in, say hello to everyone in the room, and then their noses would go up and they would alert. It was only an extra minute, but it was consistent."
From Judge, a Czech shepherd trained for Police work (and the only one where Kleenex is needed at the end of the story):
Days into the 18-week program, Judge was excelling. He had a strong work ethic, could perform tasks necessary for crowd control and building searches, and navigated wet floors and stairwells with ease. But when it came to apprehending people acting the parts of criminals in arrest scenarios, “He wouldn't let the person go, Franks remembers with a smile. “And when I would try to take him off the person, he would then turn and bite me.” It happened five or six times, according to Franks, who made several trips to the emergency room and even received 10 stitches across his nose. But one of the ace trainers at the school told him, “If you can stick with it, I promise you will get a great; dog.” He and Judge worked things out. And he got a great dog.
Even though I have read over 500 books on dogs and have heard of lots of inspiring dog stories, I never get tired of reading new stories, and the ones in this book are top notch. Unlike most collection of similar type stories, I didn't think a single one was only average. Each story also comes with great pictures of the dogs, where they capture the eyes and personality of the dogs. It makes me glad when great dogs are immortalized within the covers of a book.
I also appreciate how the organizations that trained each of the dogs is given due credit. Makes me want to give a donation to all the good work they do.
I thought a quote from the owner of Jericho, a rescue Pit Bull trained to assist a person in a wheelchair, summed up the effect a dog can have on people and families:
"He's just perfect. It’s like the gates of heaven opened up and I was given this dog.”
This is a wonderful, moving book with beautiful color photos on just about every page. Rebecca Ascher-Walsh tells the stories of mostly service and therapy dogs - with some military and police dogs as well - and their selfless devotion to people. There's Drago and Siena (Spinone Italianos), who brought comfort and love to the survivors of Sandy Hook; Duke, a border collie, who restored his quadriplegic owner's independence; Lyric, a beagle who sniffs out contraband fruit at an airport in Puerto Rico; Wyatt, a Rhodesian Ridgeback, detects cancer; and Zeke, a Belgian Malinois police dog who literally took a bullet, but survived to return to work.
This is a beautiful book and will be enjoyed by all dog lovers.
This is the kind of book you can read in one seating but the idea of it being over is too much to handle so you read just a few pages every day to make the warm and fuzzies last just a little longer.
Each one of these dogs is such a good boy or girl. I love that many of them were rescued from shelters. Some that stood out for me: Alli, JJ, Mitchell, Niko.
This review is also available on my blog, Read Till Dawn.
I love my dog to pieces, but she is so useless.
That's my main takeaway from Loyal. All of these dogs are so loyal, heroic, and dedicated; they spend the best years of their lives entirely devoted to doing their job and improving lives for the humans around them. In the meanwhile, my boxer Daisy has lived a life of luxury surrounded by fluffy pillows and caresses from humans who homeschool and therefore never leave her alone for more than a few hours at a stretch. Don't get me wrong, Daisy is an amazing dog–she never barks, never growls, never steals from the table, and devotes her life to loving us unconditionally–but she's never provided nearly the level of service that some of these dogs have. I actually think she would have made an amazing therapy dog if we'd ever taken the time to go through the training and testing, but it's too late for my old fur-baby now.
But seriously, the stories in here are just incredible. There are dogs that find trapped victims after earthquakes, docs that monitor their human companions and warn them before they start to have a seizure, dogs that spend their days comforting soldiers with horrible PTSD . . . the list goes on and on. The book packs a lot of stories into its 160-word format, each one taking anywhere from a single two-page spread to about four of them to tell its tale. There are gorgeous pictures of each dog, including several different pictures of the ones whose stories take up more pages, and for many of them there's also an insert that gives some basic information about the personality traits of their breed.
It's a very attractive book, too–rectangular, hard-back, with glossy pages. It would make a great coffee table book, or even more perfect for a vet's office waiting room. The short stories are just the right size for a dog lover to flip through and read one or two while they're waiting to take their own dog in for a check-up.
The big emphasis throughout the book is on dogs who nobody wanted, who were on the shelter list to be put down, who were instead rescued and turned into heroes for the community. I think this is amazing, and it's "show, don't tell" approach to pushing shelter dogs would I'm sure be very convincing for anyone who's on the fence about where to get their next dog. My favorite rehabilitation stories, though, were the ones about the prison programs some counties run: they adopt dogs off of the kill lists at shelters and have the prison inmates train them into model house pets and even service dogs. That's such an amazing way to provide a second chance for the dogs as well as a sense of purpose and inspiration for the inmates, isn't it? I think all prisons should have a program like that!
Basically, this book is exactly what it promises to be: a heartwarming book about dogs whose love for humans makes the world a better place. If you think that sounds like what you're looking for, then I definitely recommend it!
Disclaimer: I received a complimentary copy of this novel for the purpose of participating in a TLC Book Tour.
This was an absolutely astounding book for a dog lover like me. It was a super quick read, I think I read the whole book in an hour, and I was sad that it was over. I loved reading about programs that employ shelter or rescue dogs rather than going to a breeder. What is better than saving dogs lives to save people’s lives? I know which organizations I will be donating to in the future!
I loved that these dogs all served such different services. I was really surprised to learn that there are organizations that take shelter dogs to prisons and have the inmates train them, teaching the inmates valuable lessons about life and love. What a wonderful idea! I thought I knew the power of a dogs love, but I had no idea. I salute these brave dogs that go to work every day, and some who definitely risk their lives for their people.
As well as reading wonderful, heartwarming stories about brave dogs and their influence on their communities, and the world really, this book offered information about the different breeds of dogs mentioned in the book as well as some little known facts about dogs. I was fascinated by some of the information that I had no clue about!
*I received an advanced copy of this book from the publisher. A positive review was not required. All opinions are my own.*
I read this sweet book in less than 24 hours. I loved the inspirational stories of not only the wonderful dogs, but the fantastic people who came together to save, train and offer these wonderful animals to the public.
I liked that many of the dogs chosen to be included in this book were rescued from a shelter. I often wonder (a lot) how many animals are euthanized every year that would have turned into the perfect therapy, service or guide animal. The time, effort & money that it takes to rescue these animals is more than made up in the lives these animals help & save.
As is in most of books of this kind, there is a section in back that lists the name & website of each of the organizations that helped to give the dog training, a chance, etc.
Also the last few pages of this book has a "Canine Good Citizen Training & Testing" section. It gives the top 10 tests given to dogs to become a Canine Good Citizen. I thought this was "neat" - because I feel these 10 points are something all dogs (not just service dogs) should possess when living in our society. They are very obtainable skills & help to build bonds between owner & dog.
I also liked how the book was set up - in short stories with beautiful colored photos.
I finished devoted by the same author and immediately followed it up with this one. beautiful pictures of the dogs, descriptions of the breed (a spinone italiano is one breed highlighted) and each dog's amazing story. when I finished this book I went back and reread some of their stories. kai, a Labrador retriever trained as an accelerant detector. I want 1/4 of this dogs energy! truly fun books to read
Still reading, but almost done! It amazed me that so many of the rescue service dogs are pit bulls. It is amazing how well they adapt and what service they give, how much they love and are loved.
Nice little book about service dogs and the stories behind the people who have them. I have a couple of photographs in this book, so I am a little biased.