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“All Dogs are Rescuers” Susan Nilson reviews The Rescuers: Incredible Stories of Life-Saving Dogs by Laura Greaves
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ets rescuing their owners is something we hear about again and again, and while many of the tales we might come across on social media and in the popular press speak of pets metaphorically saving their owners, getting them through the darkest of times, remaining steadfastly loyal when everyone else has jumped ship, or any similar such scenario, there are also many, many tales of dogs who have quite literally saved their owners’ lives. All of these dogs play a starring role in award-winning journalist Laura Greaves’ latest work, The Rescuers: Incredible Stories of Life-Saving Dogs, which features 16 short, uplifting accounts of canine courage, empathy, intuition, inspiration, and intelligence. Many of the dogs have terrible back stories. To name just a few, there is Labrador mix Grace, who was found tied up in a warehouse and left to starve to death; Doberman Khan, who had been beaten by his previous owner; Brian the pit bull, who had not only been beaten but also thrown off a secondstory balcony and left home alone for two weeks; and Oscar the terrified poodle, whose fur was so overgrown and badly matted he couldn’t walk. There are dogs rescued from backyard breeders and dogs that were allaround recycled for a plethora of reasons and struggling with issues such as intense fear, anxiety, submissive urination, and learned helplessness. But to focus on the heart-wrenching back stories is not the point. Rather, the point is very much about how each dog overcame the worst of circumstance and the worst of starts in life to each do something truly monumental. There is Khan, who tossed his new family’s toddler away from a brown snake, the second most venomous snake in the world, after just four days in his new home and getting bitten himself in the process. Then there is Colt, the Weimaraner-Lab mix who started jumping up at his guardian and barking, up to two hours before she was about to have a seizure. This without any training and without his guardian initially understanding his behavior. He is now a fully trained seizure alert dog. There is Kabang, the Filipina street dog whose story made international headlines when she jumped at a motorcycle and knocked it over to stop it running into her family’s young daughter and her friend. Her nose and upper jaw were torn off as a result of the accident, but a vet in California was able to perform life-changing facial surgery and Kabang is now back in her home country acting a spokesdog for responsible pet guardianship. There is shepherd mix Duke, who woke his guardians to let them know their baby had stopped breathing; Leala the Staffordshire bull terrier, who alerted her guardian that his 2-year-old son was floating face down in the dam; Clove the cropped-eared pit bull, who gave his guardian the strength and support to overcome years of drug addiction; Grace, who helped her guardian get over her husband’s death; Brian, who saved his guardian from being attacked by another dog; Rhianna the French Mastiff, who saved her guardian from a violent physical assault in her own home; and Buddy the Labrador mix, who woke his guardian in time for her to save her adult special needs son and four other dogs from a house fire. We also read of Teddy, the Schnauzer-poodle mix who helped his guardian battle through chemotherapy and cancer surgery and “woke” him from a coma; Caoimhe, the Catahoula mix who helped her guardian recover from a very bad motorcycle accident (Note: unfortunately, this guardian received some very old-fashioned advice from a “behaviorist”); Abby, the red heeler who went to search for her male guardian on the beach when her female guardian had fallen down a cliff and broken her leg; and Sarge Kester, the blue heeler psychiatric support dog who wakes his army veteran guardian from nightmares, patrols the room so his
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guardian feels safe, reminds him to take his medication, and distracts him when he senses the onset of a panic attack. Trained in veteran specific tasks, “he chases the demons away,” says Sarge’s guardian, Steve Warwick. We read of Caesar, the Labkelpie cross tracker dog in the Australian Army who sat on his handler’s foot, allowing him to walk no further and thus saving 20 infantrymen from stepping on a landmine—despite not being trained in landmine detection. And then there is Oscar, who inspired his guardian to advocate tirelessly to keep puppies out of pet shops, ultimately leading to The Rescuers features a series of Victoria becoming the first state uplifting accounts of canine courage, empathy, intuition, inspiration, and in Australia to ban puppy farms. intelligence The tales are individually uplifting and inspiring, and affirm what many of us already know—that dogs are capable of great things. As Greaves is quick to point out in her Introduction, “all dogs are rescuers” and “all dogs are remarkable.” Indeed, writes Greaves, “dogs are rescuing us even when we don’t realise it...Dogs are superheroes in their own wonderful ways. They will save us if we let them.” Undoubtedly there are many of us who have lived with and loved a dog who would not disagree. It would be remiss not to point out here that this work contains a heavy dose of anthropomorphism, which is perhaps in itself not such a bad thing; I was reminded of Janis Bradley’s comment at PPG’s third annual summit, held in Orlando, Florida in November 2017 (bit.ly/2HHwuwq): "If you must worry about a -morphism, worry about lykomorphism." Indeed, given the book’s reliance on accounts by dog guardians and, in many cases, direct quotes from the guardians themselves, there is an unfortunate smattering of references to outdated terminology more pertinent to lupine behavior, which, as we now know, has been debunked by science and rendered inappropriate and inaccurate in its application to the behavior of domestic dogs. While it’s understandable that some dog guardians still use certain words, it would have been nice to see the author grab this golden opportunity to provide an informed explanation as to why such terms are no longer valid. While this is a book directed at dog lovers rather than professional training and behavior consultants, there is, of course, much overlap between the two. “People who love animals are easy to spot,” writes Greaves. “They’re the ones who’ll go to a party and spend the whole evening crouched in a corner, playing with the host’s dog; the ones that don’t own a single item of clothing not covered in cat hair.” And who cannot relate to that? n The Rescuers: Incredible Stories of Life‐Saving Dogs Laura Greaves (2018) 302 Pages Penguin Random House Australia ISBN: 9780143787341