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Amazing Dogs: Stories of Brilliance, Loyalty, Courage & Extraordinary Feats
Our best friends. They can be pets or working dogs; they race for sticks and balls or find survivors of disasters, and they are the subjects of some of the most amazing and touching * Employees of the Albany post office adopted a stray puppy named Owney, and in his life he traveled hundreds of thousands of miles with the mail to places around the world * John Dignard, victim of a brain injury, introduced the concept of memory dogs by training a German shepherd help him * Rescue dogs working 9/11 found a few survivors, but the remains they uncovered provided closure for grieving families * Times were tough for Jude Stringfellow, but a bipedal puppy named Faith taught her to hope again * The Sica family's golden retriever, Bullet, saved their three-week-old son from certain death from an undiagnosed heart condition * Stubby, a mongrel boxer mutt, became a hero on the front lines when his frenetic barking alerted sleeping soldiers to poisonous gas * Skippy, a hearing-ear dog, has given Kerena Marchant a taste of what freedom really means * Blue heeler cross Skidboot has made appearances on Jay Leno, Oprah and the Late Show with David Letterman to perform his amazing tricks * And so many more heartwarming stories.
- GenresNonfictionAnimals
272 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2008
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
December 21, 2024
I listened to the audiobook version. Narrated by Bobbi Goddard.
I love dog stories. Absolutely love. I have 4 dogs, work rescue, in the pet professional industry, and genuinely love reading stories about courageous dogs. This however, was such a hard book to get through. It took me a couple days to get through the 6.5 hour read time with all the rewinding and stopping I had to do. I had to take breaks with this one. It just put me to sleep and didn’t hold my attention.
The narrator was extremely boring and read this more with textbook dryness. There was no captivation or emotion. I kept drifting off in thought and couldn’t stay focused with her voice and tone. It might have been more interesting as a direct read rather than an audiobook. She also butchered many basic words. Example: again as ageen; games as gemes; dachshund as Dashend. Her reading made this feel more like a 15.5 hr book.
The stories included are really depressing. Most of the book is about dogs or their owners who died horribly or about dogs who suffered greatly due to terrible, irresponsible owners. I lost count how many stories there were where the dogs/owners died horrific, brutal deaths, or sad deaths. These are very short blurbs for the most part, though some are discussed at length, and most of the focus is on how the dogs/owners died. Instead of being a lighthearted, joyful, interesting read, I found myself struggling to get through it because it just kept bringing my mood down farther and farther with all the death and sadness. We all know dogs die and their lifespan is nowhere near long enough, it doesn’t mean I want to listen to 6.5 hours about them dying. Nearly every story had the dog/owner dying. It was just depressing. I’d have enjoyed this more had the focus been on the dog’s life and the greatness they achieved and stories that weren’t mostly about horrible owners. I’ve read many anthologies about heroic, extraordinary, loyal, brilliant dogs and heard some of these stories before, but the stories have always focused on the dog’s life and truly about their amazing abilities or personalities, not the tragic, sad deaths they had.
The focus and detail of the stories were not consistent. Some stories were extremely short, with very little detail or focus while other stories took up entire chapters or several chapters and were overly detailed and wordy. There was no rhythm or pattern. It was poorly sectioned and focused.
The writing is poorly done. It is written more like a regurgitation of Wikipedia facts rather than story form. It had many parts that were overly wordy or overly descriptive. Several times things are described more in a dictionary format. The writing didn’t grab my attention and make me want to “turn the page” so to speak like other anthologies about real, extraordinary dogs. It felt flat and boring and the flat and boring narration didn’t do it any favors. There’s also no clear break between chapters or stories. The narrator just quickly reads through the different stories without any pause.
The content itself was a horrible selection. It wasn’t remotely close to amazing dog stories.
She spent over 5 min describing what 9/11 was and recapping the play by play of each plane hitting each target. Then she described the smoke in the air to excess and listed the death toll for each location like a bulleted list. This is likely an event that the majority of people know the details of regardless if they were alive during it or from America. It just felt like so much unnecessary fact regurgitation and more like a history class with a small portion of the chapter dedicated to one of the dogs involved in the tragic event. The first dog in this chapter…not a happy one of a dog who acted courageously to rescue, it was of a security dog that was crushed to death in the basement of Tower 2. Thank you, I really needed that depressing, horrible story added to my memory bank. Why? Why include this? She briefly touched on the fact that this dog was part of the security team that routinely patrolled the towers everyday. The entire point of including this particular dog was to tell the story of how he was crushed to death in his kennel in the basement. There was no other point. We know how many lives and horrible deaths happened that day. It really wasn’t necessary to tell this story. It had absolutely nothing to do with the title of this book, “brilliance, Loyalty, Courage, and Extraordinary Feats,” especially since she didn’t focus on anything positive surrounding this dog. Just how he died.
The stories selected were 99% just horrible, irresponsible owners, making bad decisions at the expense of the dogs. None of these people should ever own a rock, let alone a living creature who is dependent on them.
Examples:
Owners leaving their pets behind during storms, disasters, house fires, vacations.
Giving them up because they moved, didn’t have space, didn’t have time, their kids didn’t take to them.
Not watching them when they’re on trips or outside and allowing them to run off and get lost, killed, hit by cars, shot.
Owners who rather than take their dogs to the vet after being hit by cars when they don’t know if they are dead or alive deciding to shoot them in the head to be sure they are or just bury them in the yard. Both of these instances the dog dug itself out of the ground…because they weren’t dead just injured.
Taking them places they have no business going or that the owners have no business going.
Three stories that were overly disgusting besides you know shooting and burying their dogs alive…
A guy who recently had a lung transplant and not in shape to walk far much less hike a mountain, decides to hike a steep mountain with no trail or way down, alone, with his old arthritic dog who had had hip reconstruction and wasn’t able to walk well. Guy realizes he can’t go any farther because he can’t breathe and feels faint. Of course he can’t get his old dog down the cliff with him, so he leaves the dog to survive on its own and goes down the cliff with his younger dog. Just. Leaves. The. Old. Dog. The dog is stranded, lost on the cliff for 29 days not able to get down, in the cold, snowy weather. He loses 25 lbs and is nearly dead when he’s finally found as a stray stuck on the cliff where he was originally left.
A family moves to the city. They just know their German shepherd won’t fit or do well in their new city/house so they leave her behind in Dec. By Valentine’s, they’re driving in a blizzard with their small children to go get a new puppy to surprise their kids. They get this puppy from a “great rescue,” then go into an excessive description of how bad the puppy stunk on the way home. Why? Because the lady running this train wreck of a “rescue” had dozens and dozens of puppies and adults in a small trailer house and she was by herself so she couldn’t take care of all of them adequately or keep them in sanitary conditions. She didn’t have space for them so she kept multiple puppies in small kennels so the puppy smelled like it had been kept full time in a small kennel with multiple other puppies. Yea. Great rescue. It gets better. They move again a few months later and think it’s praiseworthy they kept this dog and didn’t leave her behind. Literally: “we didn’t leave this puppy behind, we took her with us.” Yet they leave her behind when they come across a momma bear with two cubs, because she wasn’t leashed. Then another time they have her out at night while they stargaze, unleashed, not watching her and suddenly hear a squeal of tires and a loud thump. The dog got hit by a car and died after a long painful end.
A couple takes their dog on an out of town trip because they want to picnic midwinter on an icy mountain. Again. Off leash, not being watched. At all. While they’re laying back “relaxing” they realize oh it’s quiet. Really quiet. They don’t hear their dog. She’s run off. They don’t know when or where. They convince the Canadian equivalent of a military rescue team to search for her along with volunteers in bad weather. She’s found weeks later. She’d falling in an icy crevice, was badly injured, couldn’t get out, and nearly dead. The military-ish team had to use helicopters to rescue her and get her out of the crevice.
Absolutely poor selection of stories. These poor dogs. What’s extraordinary is they lasted as long as they did with owners like these. Most of these dogs wouldn’t have had hard lives, horrific injuries, or suffered brutal deaths had their owners been responsible and provided the absolute basic care for them and you know, actually cared about them.
Had the writing been better, the stories more consistent with pace/detail/length, there been more focus on the actual amazing parts of the dog’s stories instead if their death and the narration been more captivating and lively, this likely could’ve been a higher rating for having some unique, lesser known stories along with the more well known ones. I honestly can’t say for sure because the majority of these stories were just incredibly sad due to such horrible owners.
Initially this was a 1 star for me, then I considered adding one star for some of the more interesting, lighthearted stories that were new to me, but after reflecting on the entirety of the book, I just couldn’t rate this higher than a 1. It was just too long feeling and way too depressing. I feel like I need a huge pick me up read now just to bring my mood up a few points after this. There are so many good and great anthologies about true, heroic, amazing, talented dogs out there (and caring, good owners). This is not one. It’s not worth the sadness and depression. Skip it. There are several of these stories included in the book “Dog Tales” by Penelope Rich and it is a fun, informative, truly celebratory book about amazing dogs and will make your hesrt lighter and happier. It’s by far a much better, more enjoyable read than this depressing book.
I love dog stories. Absolutely love. I have 4 dogs, work rescue, in the pet professional industry, and genuinely love reading stories about courageous dogs. This however, was such a hard book to get through. It took me a couple days to get through the 6.5 hour read time with all the rewinding and stopping I had to do. I had to take breaks with this one. It just put me to sleep and didn’t hold my attention.
The narrator was extremely boring and read this more with textbook dryness. There was no captivation or emotion. I kept drifting off in thought and couldn’t stay focused with her voice and tone. It might have been more interesting as a direct read rather than an audiobook. She also butchered many basic words. Example: again as ageen; games as gemes; dachshund as Dashend. Her reading made this feel more like a 15.5 hr book.
The stories included are really depressing. Most of the book is about dogs or their owners who died horribly or about dogs who suffered greatly due to terrible, irresponsible owners. I lost count how many stories there were where the dogs/owners died horrific, brutal deaths, or sad deaths. These are very short blurbs for the most part, though some are discussed at length, and most of the focus is on how the dogs/owners died. Instead of being a lighthearted, joyful, interesting read, I found myself struggling to get through it because it just kept bringing my mood down farther and farther with all the death and sadness. We all know dogs die and their lifespan is nowhere near long enough, it doesn’t mean I want to listen to 6.5 hours about them dying. Nearly every story had the dog/owner dying. It was just depressing. I’d have enjoyed this more had the focus been on the dog’s life and the greatness they achieved and stories that weren’t mostly about horrible owners. I’ve read many anthologies about heroic, extraordinary, loyal, brilliant dogs and heard some of these stories before, but the stories have always focused on the dog’s life and truly about their amazing abilities or personalities, not the tragic, sad deaths they had.
The focus and detail of the stories were not consistent. Some stories were extremely short, with very little detail or focus while other stories took up entire chapters or several chapters and were overly detailed and wordy. There was no rhythm or pattern. It was poorly sectioned and focused.
The writing is poorly done. It is written more like a regurgitation of Wikipedia facts rather than story form. It had many parts that were overly wordy or overly descriptive. Several times things are described more in a dictionary format. The writing didn’t grab my attention and make me want to “turn the page” so to speak like other anthologies about real, extraordinary dogs. It felt flat and boring and the flat and boring narration didn’t do it any favors. There’s also no clear break between chapters or stories. The narrator just quickly reads through the different stories without any pause.
The content itself was a horrible selection. It wasn’t remotely close to amazing dog stories.
She spent over 5 min describing what 9/11 was and recapping the play by play of each plane hitting each target. Then she described the smoke in the air to excess and listed the death toll for each location like a bulleted list. This is likely an event that the majority of people know the details of regardless if they were alive during it or from America. It just felt like so much unnecessary fact regurgitation and more like a history class with a small portion of the chapter dedicated to one of the dogs involved in the tragic event. The first dog in this chapter…not a happy one of a dog who acted courageously to rescue, it was of a security dog that was crushed to death in the basement of Tower 2. Thank you, I really needed that depressing, horrible story added to my memory bank. Why? Why include this? She briefly touched on the fact that this dog was part of the security team that routinely patrolled the towers everyday. The entire point of including this particular dog was to tell the story of how he was crushed to death in his kennel in the basement. There was no other point. We know how many lives and horrible deaths happened that day. It really wasn’t necessary to tell this story. It had absolutely nothing to do with the title of this book, “brilliance, Loyalty, Courage, and Extraordinary Feats,” especially since she didn’t focus on anything positive surrounding this dog. Just how he died.
The stories selected were 99% just horrible, irresponsible owners, making bad decisions at the expense of the dogs. None of these people should ever own a rock, let alone a living creature who is dependent on them.
Examples:
Owners leaving their pets behind during storms, disasters, house fires, vacations.
Giving them up because they moved, didn’t have space, didn’t have time, their kids didn’t take to them.
Not watching them when they’re on trips or outside and allowing them to run off and get lost, killed, hit by cars, shot.
Owners who rather than take their dogs to the vet after being hit by cars when they don’t know if they are dead or alive deciding to shoot them in the head to be sure they are or just bury them in the yard. Both of these instances the dog dug itself out of the ground…because they weren’t dead just injured.
Taking them places they have no business going or that the owners have no business going.
Three stories that were overly disgusting besides you know shooting and burying their dogs alive…
A guy who recently had a lung transplant and not in shape to walk far much less hike a mountain, decides to hike a steep mountain with no trail or way down, alone, with his old arthritic dog who had had hip reconstruction and wasn’t able to walk well. Guy realizes he can’t go any farther because he can’t breathe and feels faint. Of course he can’t get his old dog down the cliff with him, so he leaves the dog to survive on its own and goes down the cliff with his younger dog. Just. Leaves. The. Old. Dog. The dog is stranded, lost on the cliff for 29 days not able to get down, in the cold, snowy weather. He loses 25 lbs and is nearly dead when he’s finally found as a stray stuck on the cliff where he was originally left.
A family moves to the city. They just know their German shepherd won’t fit or do well in their new city/house so they leave her behind in Dec. By Valentine’s, they’re driving in a blizzard with their small children to go get a new puppy to surprise their kids. They get this puppy from a “great rescue,” then go into an excessive description of how bad the puppy stunk on the way home. Why? Because the lady running this train wreck of a “rescue” had dozens and dozens of puppies and adults in a small trailer house and she was by herself so she couldn’t take care of all of them adequately or keep them in sanitary conditions. She didn’t have space for them so she kept multiple puppies in small kennels so the puppy smelled like it had been kept full time in a small kennel with multiple other puppies. Yea. Great rescue. It gets better. They move again a few months later and think it’s praiseworthy they kept this dog and didn’t leave her behind. Literally: “we didn’t leave this puppy behind, we took her with us.” Yet they leave her behind when they come across a momma bear with two cubs, because she wasn’t leashed. Then another time they have her out at night while they stargaze, unleashed, not watching her and suddenly hear a squeal of tires and a loud thump. The dog got hit by a car and died after a long painful end.
A couple takes their dog on an out of town trip because they want to picnic midwinter on an icy mountain. Again. Off leash, not being watched. At all. While they’re laying back “relaxing” they realize oh it’s quiet. Really quiet. They don’t hear their dog. She’s run off. They don’t know when or where. They convince the Canadian equivalent of a military rescue team to search for her along with volunteers in bad weather. She’s found weeks later. She’d falling in an icy crevice, was badly injured, couldn’t get out, and nearly dead. The military-ish team had to use helicopters to rescue her and get her out of the crevice.
Absolutely poor selection of stories. These poor dogs. What’s extraordinary is they lasted as long as they did with owners like these. Most of these dogs wouldn’t have had hard lives, horrific injuries, or suffered brutal deaths had their owners been responsible and provided the absolute basic care for them and you know, actually cared about them.
Had the writing been better, the stories more consistent with pace/detail/length, there been more focus on the actual amazing parts of the dog’s stories instead if their death and the narration been more captivating and lively, this likely could’ve been a higher rating for having some unique, lesser known stories along with the more well known ones. I honestly can’t say for sure because the majority of these stories were just incredibly sad due to such horrible owners.
Initially this was a 1 star for me, then I considered adding one star for some of the more interesting, lighthearted stories that were new to me, but after reflecting on the entirety of the book, I just couldn’t rate this higher than a 1. It was just too long feeling and way too depressing. I feel like I need a huge pick me up read now just to bring my mood up a few points after this. There are so many good and great anthologies about true, heroic, amazing, talented dogs out there (and caring, good owners). This is not one. It’s not worth the sadness and depression. Skip it. There are several of these stories included in the book “Dog Tales” by Penelope Rich and it is a fun, informative, truly celebratory book about amazing dogs and will make your hesrt lighter and happier. It’s by far a much better, more enjoyable read than this depressing book.
December 6, 2024
In this scary crazy world, sometimes you just need a happy read. This is just a collection of very short stories about good dogs. Nothing very surprising. Dogs are awesome and humans do not deserve their pure love. If you read this go pet a dog asap.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews