Mar 14, 2008

Puppy love enriches lives

Author looks at ways dogs have healed souls

By Terri Schlichenmeyer / Book Reviewer

"Paws & Effect" by Sharon Sakson
Alyson Books
$25, 231 pages

The second you come home, you're greeted by your furry roommate. Whether it's a kitty face rub against the cuff of your pants, happy chirring from the cage or a tail that's wagging at the speed of light, you know you're loved, you're needed, and someone couldn't wait to have you home.

As much as pets need us to care for them, we need them for our well-being says author Sharon Sakson. In her new book, "Paws & Effect," she writes about dogs who have healed their friends, inside and out.

When Sakson was a seventh-grader, she says her mother took to bed ill and never recovered. Sakson's stoic father bought Sakson a dog and when the puppy was killed, he got her another. She remembers how bereft she was and she felt suicidal until she realized that her dog needed her. She had to live for the sake of her pet.

These memories and her experiences with her whippets and Brussels griffons spurred Sakson to write "Paws & Reflect," her previous book on the subject. "Paws & Effect" follows Sakson's further explorations on our need for canine companionship.

Scientists had often wondered about canine domestication. It was easy to figure out how dogs moved near human campfires, but were they just hangers-on or were they beloved members of the family even then? In an ancient grave, they found their answer with the bones of an old woman. She had been buried with her hand lovingly wrapped around the body of her small puppy.

It seems that we need dogs, not just for their companionship, but for their healing. Sakson talked with a woman who breeds Xolo dogs, an ancient Mexican breed. These tiny, eager little pooches with their warm, nearly-hairless bodies are helping arthritis sufferers and those stricken with physical pain.

But dogs don't just heal bodies. They heal minds as well, as Sakson shows. She visited PAWS, a San Francisco group that helps keep dogs with their ill, aged or poverty-stricken owners. She talked with a woman who runs a school for service dogs and their instructors. She introduces readers to a man who learned the calming effect dogs have on abused and frightened children. She visited dogs that detect cancer and seizures, and she met a soldier who brought his K-9 buddy home from the war.

When pet owners get together, they cannot resist sharing stories, and although there's nothing new to learn, it's still fun.

"Paws & Effect" is a lot like that. Author Sharon Sakson breeds whippets and griffons, and it's obvious that she loves dogs. Like a true canine connoisseur, she shares an abundance of tales about people who work with dogs, learn from dogs, and a few stories of folks who weren't "dog people" but quickly became converts when they found just the right pup.

"Paws & Effect" is a slim book, but it's packed with some gigantic stories. If you share your life with a dog, it's definitely something you'll want to dig up.