Molly: The True Story of the Amazing Dog Who Rescues Cats
Written and Narrated By: Colin Butcher
Length: 9 hrs and 47 mins
Plenty for the dog lover! Plenty for the cat lover! Plenty for the lover of detective stories!
One of the most lovely things about this book is that it is an animal-lover’s delight all the way through. Yes, there are the heartbreaking results from search attempts that didn’t work out or that came just a tad too late, but at least it started with Butcher’s childhood being one of love for animals. His parents always rescued animals, teaching their children that there’s ALWAYS room to love just one more. Awwww, so there’s that.
Then too, this is a well-written book that feels like an urban kitty/doggy search and rescue James Herriot set of tales. Colin obviously appreciates his surroundings, especially when he’s able to take cases in the country, and he writes so lyrically that you feel you’re lying on the grass with Molly after a mission, watching the stars in the sky. And it’s truly obvious that his affection for the pets he and Molly look for, and his affection for their owners, is real, warm, and genuine. Each has their quirks, and after his extensive experience as a longtime police officer, he knows how to soothe people and pets/knows how to suss things out.
It started as a vague idea, and to me at least, it was never fully explained why it was “moggies” as cats are called in the UK that he was keen to train a dog to search for. But I s’pose that any person who’s lived with both cats and dogs’ll tell you, they’re mighty different, and cats can be elusive when you’re looking for them, jumpy and schizzy when they’re scared, so hmm… yeh… I get it. When he began approaching people to see if they’d help train a dog to track cats, he was told it was impossible, he was laughed at, he was even shouted down. Well, Colin Butcher is here to tell you that it can indeed be done, and he has Molly to prove it—a rescue herself, with quirks and foibles of her own, she’s just the right little black Cocker Spaniel to do it.
While Molly is about, well, Molly, it’s also about what it took to train her, of working with cat rescue shelters to help teach how to isolate a cat’s scent from others; of working with a dog who’s just learning to really trust after having lived in too many homes in her very young life; of getting his very Don’t You Dare Trash My House girlfriend, Sarah, to coooooome around to loving Molly herself.
And THEN it’s about some awesome cases, and some of them don’t go well enough to suit Butcher’s wishes, and it’s full well clear that they haunt him to this day. So, go into the book expecting the other side of the Happy Ending knowing, as most of those owners tell him, at least they have closure. For the most part, however, they depict an enthusiastic detective pair, with Butcher as the front man…. and Molly doing all the real work. Nah, just kidding—I found it compelling how Butcher was able to use his skills at people reading, especially to see if they were being evasive/untruthful by physical tells: that little break in eye contact, some quick shuffling. And there’s one case in there, a bit of dognapping, where he brings his Police Persona to get some bad guys to do the right thing… or else…
While it’s always kind of a 50-50 deal whether an author can read their own work, I think it worked well here with Butcher doing his own narration except, bless his heart, he can’t do an accent to save his life. But his love for Molly is warm and sincere, and it comes through loud and clear when you can actually hear the smile in his voice as he talks about how stubborn and wayward she is.
Every week I do an Animals Pick for my week’s listening, and I can honestly say that I really, really enjoyed this book. Though I did indeed tear up a time or two, mostly this was some feel-good listening with a few lows and many, many highs.
And oh how it made me miss our beloved dogs, Val and Hayden!!! I swear, the next time we’re able to own a dog, I’m gonna set about teaching it to track RoRo…!
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