From two-time National Book Award nominee Melissa Fay Greene comes a
profound and surprising account of dogs on the front lines of rescuing
both children and adults from the trenches of grief, emotional,
physical, and cognitive disability, and post-traumatic stress disorder.
The Underdogs tells the story of Karen Shirk, felled at age
twenty-four by a neuromuscular disease and facing life as a
ventilator-dependent, immobile patient, who was turned down by every
service dog agency in the country because she was "too disabled." Her
nurse encouraged her to tone down the suicidal thoughts, find a puppy,
and raise her own service dog. Karen did this, and Ben, a German
shepherd, dragged her back into life. "How many people are stranded like
I was," she wondered, "who would lead productive lives if only they had
a dog?"
A thousand state-of-the-art dogs later, Karen Shirk's service dog
academy, 4 Paws for Ability, is restoring broken children and their
families to life. Long shunned by scientists as a manmade, synthetic
species, and oft- referred to as "Man's Best Friend" almost
patronizingly, dogs are finally paid respectful attention by a new
generation of neuroscientists and animal behaviorists. Melissa Fay
Greene weaves the latest scientific discoveries about our co-evolution
with dogs with Karen's story and a few exquisitely rendered stories of
suffering children and their heartbroken families.
Written with characteristic insight, humanity, humor, and irrepressible
joy, what could have been merely touching is a penetrating,
compassionate exploration of larger questions: about our attachment to
dogs, what constitutes a productive life, and what can be accomplished
with unconditional love.
