Dogs Who Serve: Incredible Stories of Our Canine Military Heroes
By: Lisa Rogak / Narrated By: C.S.E Cooney
Length: 2 hrs and 50 mins
Hmm… Might I refer you to others in our K9 Vets Day Collection, rather than this…?
Audiobook Accomplice only started in September of 2018, so it was a matter of Hell On Wheels Racing to get Special Occasions started. We began with Halloween, rushed through, buuuuut… somehow we forGOT Veterans Day that November. I KNOW!
So when we DID do K9 Veterans Day—we humbly apologized for that oversight, promised that in 2019 we would NOT forget our wonderful 2-legged Veterans, but dang! Is Audiobook Accomplice a couple o’ Animal Lovin’ nutbags, or what? What I’m saying is: We were soooo there for the first K9 Veterans Day we came across.
That said, we don’t have as many reviews as I’d wish -But- dude! I reeeally gotta direct you to some others cuz Dogs Who Serve by author Lisa Rogak was a bit of a slapdash effort. I still will give Rogak’s The Dog’s of War a go in the future, esPECially as it is NOT narrated by C.S.E. Cooney!
Okay, THAT said? If you’ve only 3 hours available, and if you do NOT wanna blow your brains out with extreeeme over-enunciation, esPECially of “t”s (Which drives me insane!), p’raps this is kinda sorta okay...
It has a bit o’ everything, from how the puppies are fostered out to live in families and socialized in a variety of community environments until they go back into training at 7-months old (And if being taken away from the home life causes depression that lasts more than a few weeks, they’re adopted out). Then it gives us a bit of what training the pups go through, how much they’re exposed to. I DID find the section on dogs getting used to being strapped to a person, or a line, and being lowered down to the ground, all whilst helicopter blades are swirling and roaring, to be quite fascinating. One handler pointed out juuuuust how very close a scared dog’s jaws were to handler flesh and bones… Yikes!
But don’t expect to go through too much of any one thing. Not even stories of the dogs themselves, or of their experiences either deployed or serving back Stateside. What’s there is charming to be sure, as who doesn’t love a Who’s A Good Dog Tale? And it was soooo nice that a tiiiny nod to animals being more than just a bit o’ equipment began in 2000, with no longer workable dogs being offered for adoption to a handler or to a carefully vetted person. And it was heartwarming that Rogak mentioned how wonderful the stray dogs who become Mascots for troops deployed in war zones are.
However, if you’ve been around and have gotten into history? Uhm, don’t mean to dampen your day, but they truly are viewed as equipment, and Mascots are forbidden, even when they protect their beloved humans like crazy. So, nice mention and all that, but reality is far grimmer. Oh my: I can see I’ve cast a gloomy shadow on things. Okay so, like, onto the next Booooo.
C.S.E. Cooney, who I checked and found has done NUMerous narrations for audiobooks, is truly HARD to listen to. It’s reeeally difficult to become engaged in a story when the narrator is soooo careful with pronunciations, is soooo over the top with isolating the “t”s in Every. Single. WORD, to the point where I felt I was wiping spit from my eye. Jeez, just NOOOOO!!! I am never getting near another of her narrations: Too jaunty; too careful; didn’t question her choice of pronunciations for a single second as it was PAINfully obvious she went to greeeeaat lengths to Get It All Done Perfectly. Yeeesh.
And so? For K9 Veterans Day 2022? Here’s a 3-hour Listen for ya. Or better yet? Ya want loads of text with the whys and wherefores of history? There’s Soldier Dogs. For Much-Loved Mascots who befriend America’s Warriors? There’s No Buddy Left Behind. For an engaging one depicting a K9 dog’s grief and training and PTSD once back after deployment? There’s Max. A K9 in action On the Ground DURING Deployment? Top Dog.
And a true Heartbreaker? Cracker!
Yeh yeh yeh: You can just see what-all we’ve got. But each of those in particular flesh out what is only sooo briefly touched upon in Dogs Who Serve. And with that I’ll hush up, and just say:
Who’s A Good Dog!
Oh what those wonderful canines do for us…! Hats off, mighty salutes, and maaaaybe this didn’t make me cry that much. But? At least there were indeed enough snippets offered to make me sure that, when all is said and done; those K9s are getting the respect they deserve. And many get the retirements due them.
Huzzah!
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