Another Good Dog: One Family and Fifty Foster Dogs
By: Cara Sue Achterberg / Narrated By: Xe Sands
Length: 7 hrs and 48 mins
The fear of an empty nest leads to the fullest heart possible!
God how I miss dogs! When I married my husband, I brought three cats to the family, but he brought two AWEsome dogs, Val and Hayden. We had them for years when Val died, old age, leaving Hayden so desperate that she’d join the herd of cats as tho’ they were her new meowing pack. But then we lost her to old age also, and then we had to move from our home into apartments, no yards, nooo dogs.
And we’ve since sighed and moaned over each dog we’ve seen out and about since.
So give me a good dog rescue story, and I’m THERE!!!
And Another Good Dog completely and absolutely fills that bill! Cara, mother of three young adults, growing and heading towards college and lives of independence, decides she can’t take it anymore. She earlier lost her good buddy, Lucy, and their remaining dog, a spaz named Gracie, just isn’t filling up as much of her life as she’d like.
Enter Operation Paws for Homes, a group who rescues dogs from high-kill shelters and brings them north to find forever homes. They need people to foster, and Cara is thinking she can try out dogs, looking for that special one, and help out, do some good by giving a few dogs a home as they settle into life outside of a kill shelter. Their first dog turns out to be an absolute success, a fun ride, but not The One. After little Galina finds her forever home, Cara’s off to take in OPH’s latest offering. And it goes on and on, many of the dogs aaaalmost being The One, but none ever quite turning into the family’s second dog.
But things are going swimmingly as it is; why change it up when the Achterberg family is doing so much good and helping so many dogs? And Gracie, their spaz of a dog, is taking it all sooo well. She gets grouchy at first when she meets a new foster, but ultimately she’s a veritable hero.
Cara starts going crazy with the whole thing. After all, OPH reeeally needs foster homes for all the dogs they’ve pulled, and Cara makes sure that she and her family are there for whatever/whoever needs it, whether it be a passel o’ pups, a puppy mill mom, bred over and over, depressed and not knowing what affection is, or whether it be a rescue from Iraq with all her PTSD issues. It’s always crazy in the Achterberg household, and aside from one horrific fit, husband Nick proves himself to be The. Best. Husband. EVER.
The book isn’t just about the dogs (And expect snippets rather than long and drawn out stories of the dogs as they’re each on a journey to Elsewhere); it’s about the family making do the best they can, the struggles to pay for colleges for three kids, the struggles as each child’s personality morphs and takes shape as they grow into adults. It’s also about Cara’s struggles to find her way as a writer, where the dogs kinda sorta start making appearances in her fiction.
I LOVE Xe Sands! I think she’s a fantastic narrator who gives her performances everything she’s got, no self-consciousness about interjecting emotion, interjecting a laugh or chuckle where humor calls for it. But is it just me, or is her voice just soooo smoooothe that it sometimes leads a person to stare at a wall in a bemused stupor? I kept catching myself sorta nodding off, and I haaated that cuz I reeeally wanted to know: What Happens Next?!! So, yeah, yeah, yeah. There were indeed a few yawns, and I couldn’t help it, but my mind wandered a bit every now and then. But it’s not the fault of the story! And I hate to put it all on Xe Sands—still looove her, and she’s done a few more of my favorite Animal books (Soon to be Audiobook Accomplice Animal Picks, coming up!).
I loved this short audiobook, loved the stories, loved the irascible and spastic Gracie—that ever-faithful, ever-loyal, ever-PATIENT dog. And may that family be blessed with many more rescues. As Cara came to learn: If you can’t part with ‘em? You can’t rescue more!
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