Love Is the Best Medicine Quotes

“Over the years I've come to appreciate how animals enter our lives prepared to teach and far from being burdened by an inability to speak they have many different ways to communicate. It is up to us to listen more than hear, to look into more than past.”
― Nick Trout, Love Is the Best Medicine: What Two Dogs Taught One Veterinarian about Hope, Humility, and Everyday Miracles

“Perhaps the greatest gift an animal has to offer is a permanent reminder of who we really are.”
― Nick Trout, Love Is the Best Medicine: What Two Dogs Taught One Veterinarian about Hope, Humility, and Everyday Miracles

“There are many reasons why so many of us choose to share our lives with a pet--it's the perfect antidote for loneliness, providing an endless supply of smiles and the certainty of unwavering companionship, and many of us have seen the way a pet can make a family feel whole.”
― Nick Trout, Love Is the Best Medicine: What Two Dogs Taught One Veterinarian about Hope, Humility, and Everyday Miracles

“The amount of actual time is irrelevant because the intensity of the moment is guaranteed to last. It doesn't matter because what remains and what can never be lost is a spirit.”
― Nick Trout, Love Is the Best Medicine: What Two Dogs Taught One Veterinarian about Hope, Humility, and Everyday Miracles

“Our pets will never be with us for long enough, at least physically, but when they have been blessed with opportunity and been able to live a full life, how can we respond with anything less than pride and celebration?”
― Nick Trout, Love Is the Best Medicine: What Two Dogs Taught One Veterinarian about Hope, Humility, and Everyday Miracles

“Cleo loved people. She was my transparent dog. What you saw was what you got, as though you could see into her soul.”
― Nick Trout, Love Is the Best Medicine: What Two Dogs Taught One Veterinarian about Hope, Humility, and Everyday Miracles

“Tragedy can demolish like an explosion – swift and indiscriminate and crushing and painful. But sometimes, for some people, what remains after the rubble of confusion has had a chance to settle is an amazing clarity. Suddenly, all the obstructions and debris and pointless minutia of our life are wiped away, and for those who can open their minds, there are new, important vistas to take in, and a different way to look at the world.”
― Nick Trout, Love Is the Best Medicine: What Two Dogs Taught One Veterinarian about Hope, Humility, and Everyday Miracles

“Having come this far, exposed and candid, perhaps I can find sanctuary behind one incontestable truth pervading operating rooms across the country – the reality of everyday miracles. From time to time the inexplicable and the impossible happen. Behind a paper mask and under artificial lights I get to perform surgery on an unconscious body, the physical part of what we think of as a pet. Essentially I’m working construction. I’m the guy splicing wires, welding pipes, shoring up support beams, and generally renovating the house. All the other stuff, the important stuff, I cannot influence. These are the intangibles, the memories, the history, the bonds, the things that make a difference between a house and a home, the things that make the difference between a body covered in scales or feathers or fur and our pet. It is this everything else that eludes me. This everything else is the spirit of the animal. Under anesthesia, it might move out for a while, but when the surgery is done and the gas turned off, it comes back. In our worst-case scenario, regardless of whether it returns or not, it doesn’t cease to exist. Anesthesia is just a training run for the soul.”
― Nick Trout, Love Is the Best Medicine: What Two Dogs Taught One Veterinarian about Hope, Humility, and Everyday Miracles

“Most likely my thoughts were overshadowed by a hankering for a smaller hand size or a larger breed of patient. This was going to be tight – one-handed bomb disposal down a rabbit hole. This close to a beating heart, cutting the wrong connection or failing to cut it clean could be fatal.”
― Nick Trout, Love Is the Best Medicine: What Two Dogs Taught One Veterinarian about Hope, Humility, and Everyday Miracles

“I am often intrigued by the coupling between pet and human. What was it about this particular cat? Why a mouse and not a gerbil? What did this puppy do that stopped you in your tracks and made you say, “Come home with me”? Unlike choosing a human partner, pet owners aren’t usually set up by well-meaning friends. They haven’t filled out a detailed online survey that ascertains compatibility. Rather they rely on instant attraction and trust a gut feeling, an intangible instinct that more often then not ends up being exactly right.”
― Nick Trout, Love Is the Best Medicine: What Two Dogs Taught One Veterinarian about Hope, Humility, and Everyday Miracles

“See, Danny died” The words came out and then she laughed, defending against the tears poised to ruin her mascara. “I was with him for eighteen years. He was Danny’s dog, but Danny knew I stole Blue’s heart as much as Blue stole mine. This dog hasn’t just changed my life, this dog saved my life.”

Her voice began to falter as she added, “Blue is my last connection to him. If this dog ever dies I die.”
― Nick Trout, Love Is the Best Medicine: What Two Dogs Taught One Veterinarian about Hope, Humility, and Everyday Miracles