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A Good Dog is the story of pre-eminent dog writer Jon Katz's lifetime dog, Orson.
The terribly troubled, terribly handsome Orson is actually Devon, the border collie Katz wrote about in his 2002 book, A Dog Year. In that book, he chronicled his first year with the rambunctious Devon. In A Good Dog, Katz writes of renaming Devon because calling his name seemed to frighten him. It was one of Katz's many attempts to help his dog overcome some indecipherable past trauma.
Orson's story takes place at Bedlam Farm in upstate New York, the setting for Katz's The Dogs of Bedlam Farm. It's the tale of a man's love for a faithful, intelligent dog with a genius for trouble.
It's also the story of Katz's realization that he has Orson (named for Orson Welles) to thank for his decision to live his life on a farm and immerse himself in nature.
Like John Grogan's Marley & Me, A Good Dog shows how the intersection of canine and human can sometimes result in profound love -- as well as profound frustration.
But A Good Dog is not as lighthearted as Marley & Me. Orson is emotionally or psychically damaged. His bouts of frenzy and uncontrollable behavior prompt Katz to try everything to find its source and fix it. But no one -- not veterinarians, dog whisperers, trainers, a shamanic soul retriever or an acupuncturist -- can get to the root of Orson's problems.
A Good Dog is a heartbreaking love story, although some may find fault with Orson's fate.
Stay tuned for the movie version of A Dog Year. Scheduled for release next year, it stars Jeff Bridges as Katz, and much of the filming took place on Katz's farm.
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Despite its title, Mary E. Fischer's Stealing Love is not just about her escapades liberating mistreated dogs from their abusive owners. It's also the story of her traumatic childhood and the unhappy years she spent at a convent boarding school after her womanizing, hard-drinking father placed her mother in a mental institution.
But it is those childhood days, which included her father giving away her beloved beagle, Queenie, that made it difficult for her to form healthy, long-lasting relationships as an adult.
It is in middle age that Fischer discovers her special calling as a dognapper and, in turn, her value as a caring human being.
When she witnesses dog owners in her Los Angeles neighborhood who kick, punch, starve and ignore their canine companions, she discovers that she just can't stand by and let it happen.
So she begins, in the middle of the night, to dress in black, break through fences and gates, and steal the put-upon animals. Then she finds them new homes.
In one case, she keeps stealing a neighbor's dogs. He keeps replacing them with other dogs she then has to kidnap.
Through it all, she marvels at the dogs' indomitable spirit.
As in A Good Dog, Fischer must determine the right thing to do based on what's good for the dogs and not what's best for their human caretakers.
A Good Dog: The Story of Orson, Who Changed My Life
By Jon Katz
Villard, 224 pp., $21.95
Stealing Love: Confessions
of a Dognapper
By Mary A. Fischer
Harmony Books, 267 pp., $23
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