A Good Dog: The Story of Orson, Who Changed My Life

(the ratings on Amazon is 3.5 because some felt that the decision to put the dog down is wrong. However, i give this book 4 stars.)

“People who love dogs often talk about a ‘lifetime’ dog. I’d heard the phrase a dozen times before I came to recognize its significance. Lifetime dogs are dogs we love in especially powerful, sometimes inexplicable ways.” – Jon Katz

In this gripping and deeply touching book, bestselling author Jon Katz tells the story of his lifetime dog, Orson: a beautiful border collie–intense, smart, crazy, and unforgettable.

From the moment Katz and Orson meet, when the dog springs from his traveling crate at Newark airport and panics the baggage claim area, their relationship is deep, stormy, and loving. At two years old, Katz’s new companion is a great herder of school buses, a scholar of refrigerators, but a dud at herding sheep. Everything Katz attempts– obedience training, herding instruction, a new name, acupuncture, herb and alternative therapies–helps a little but not enough, and not for long. “Like all border collies and many dogs,” Katz writes, “he needed work. I didn’t realize for some time I was the work Orson would find.”

While Katz is trying to help his dog, Orson is helping him, shepherding him toward a new life on a two-hundred-year-old hillside farm in upstate New York. There, aided by good neighbors and a tolerant wife, hip-deep in sheep, chickens, donkeys, and more dogs, the man and his canine companion explore meadows, woods, and even stars, wade through snow, bask by a roaring wood stove, and struggle to keep faith with each other. There, with deep love, each embraces his unfolding destiny.

A Good Dog is a book to savor. Just as Orson was the author’s lifetime dog, his story is a lifetime treasure–poignant, timeless, and powerful.

A Dog Year: Rescuing Devon, the Most Troublesome Dog in the World

When Jon Katz takes in a young troubled border collie, his calm, sedate life will never be the same again. Jon and his wife live in a New Jersey suburb with two perfectly behaved Labradors. Then into the mix comes Devon, who creates havoc from the moment he arrives at the airport, when it takes Jon, two baggage handlers and three police officers to track him down after he escapes. Jon learns the hard way how to encourage Devon to behave. But amongst the difficulties of their first year together, Jon discovers his life is enlivened by a creature with so much mischievousness and joie de vivre. In fact, Jon finds that he is to change as much as Devon. By turns insightful, hilarious and deeply moving, “A Dog Year” is a delightful true story of the age-old bond between man and dog.

Marley and Me

John and Jenny were just beginning their life together. They were young and in love, with a perfect little house and not a care in the world. Then they bought home Marley, a wiggly yellow fur ball of a puppy. Life would never be the same. Marley quickly grew into a barrelling, ninety-seven pound steamroller of a Labrador retriever, a dog like no other. He crashed through screen doors, gouged through drywall, flung drool on guests, stole women’s undergarments, and ate nearly everything he could get his mouth around, including couches and fine jewellery. Obedience school did no good – Marley was expelled. And yet Marley’s heart was pure. Just as he joyfully refused any limits on his behaviour, his love and loyalty were boundless, too. Marley shared the couple’s joy at their first pregnancy, and their heartbreak over the miscarriage. He was there when babies finally arrived and when the screams of a seventeen-year-old stabbing victim pierced the night. The heartwarming and unforgettable story of a family in the making and the wondrously neurotic dog who taught them what really matters in life.

A Friend Like Henry

This is the inspiring account of a family’s struggle to break into their son’s autistic world – and how a dog made the real difference. Dale was still a baby when his parents realised that something wasn’t right. Worried, his mother Nuala took him to see several doctors, before finally hearing the word ‘autism’ for the first time in a specialist’s office. (Autism wasn’t very recognized back then) Scared but determined that Dale should live a fulfilling life, Nuala describes her despair at her son’s condition, her struggle to prevent Dale being excluded from a ‘normal’ education and her sense of hopeless isolation. Dale’s autism was severe and violent and family life was a daily battleground.

But the Gardner’s lives were transformed when they welcomed a gorgeous Golden Retriever into the family. The special bond between Dale and his dog Henry helped them to produce the breakthrough in Dale they had long sought. From taking a bath to saying ‘I love you’, Henry helped introduce Dale to all the normal activities most parents take for granted, and set him on the road to being the charming and well-adjusted young man he is today.

This is a heartrending and fascinating account of how one devoted and talented dog helped a little boy conquer his autism.