Monday 13 December 2010

Book Review - The Puppy That Came For Christmas

Synopsis
When Megan and Ian got married, they wanted to start a family. But their desire to be parents ended up bringing one furry bundle of fun after another into their lives. At the same time as embarking on difficult and traumatic fertility treatment, Megan and Ian became involved with a charity which provides helper dogs to people with disabilities. And into their home one day came Emma, a soft, sweet-natured puppy with whom they fell instantly in love. However, after six months Emma had completed her training and was given to someone in need. To get over their broken hearts, Megan and Ian took in another pup: Freddy. And fell in love all over again . . . only for Freddy to move on too. Megan and Ian didn’t know if they could keep taking in these adorable puppies and giving them away later. It was getting too hard, too painful. But then, one Christmas, little Traffy came along . . . 



My Review
The author of this book is apparently quite local, and so we requested her book at work to see what i thought and if it would be good for her to come into the library to do a talk to our reading groups. As i love animals and read quickly, i was given this tasks. The book is not very long and only took me a couple of hours to read.
I found the book interesting, it tells you more about how dogs are trained for disabled people, and the process they go through to become a helper dog. It also gave an insight into the amount of work the 'puppy parents' have to do and all the paperwork they get stuck with. Training these puppies, even for the short six months their 'parents' have them seems to become like a full time job. The bond formed between the 'parents' and puppies is also lovely and heartbreaking as they have to part at the end of six months so the dogs can go into further training. 
This book documents a year in the life of the author, her journey with two dogs and her struggle to get pregnant and start a family. There are some definite 'aww' moments and some funny ones to.
This book would be good to dip in and out of, and nice for a lazy day in. As I had to read it and had a deadline, i sat and read it basically in one session and at some points got a bit fed up with it, but through perseverance and determination i plugged on and was surprised by how much i enjoyed it overall.
It is written more in a story format, and so in some places I had to remind myself it was actually a true story and not something made up, but in some ways this is good, as it meant it flowed well.
I don't really read much non-fiction, but this was enjoyable and I would read others like it.

My Rating
I would give this book 8/10. A nice easy read, with some gorgeous puppy pictures included. 

4 comments:

Melissa (i swim for oceans) said...

This sounds very cute. I'd have a hard time reviewing it, but I'm glad you did so for me. I think my veterinarian sister would adore this :)

Carrie at In the Hammock Blog said...

this looks really good! i would like the insight on helper dogs. thanks for sharing!!

barmybex said...

thanks for reading my review, was a nice book, hope you enjoy it as much as me, if you decide to give it a go.

Unknown said...

Good review. The subject of dogs helping disabled people seems like it would be interesting and even more so in the holiday season.
Mike Draper