Thanks to blogger Janice Lloyd for such a generous review!

Mar 30, 2010

Carol Bradley’s new book about one dog’s rescue from a puppy mill is powerful writing, combining the painstaking care of a journalist trained in good storytelling with the compassion of an animal lover opposed to the humiliation of any living creature.

Saving Gracie (Wiley Publishing, Inc.) doesn’t spare us any grim details about dog 132 —  as this Cavalier King Charles Spaniel is labeled at the puppy mill where she is a breeding machine. But don’t shy away from the book for that reason. Reading about her pathetic condition made this reader admire her resilience even more. Gracie has a spark in her no one should be allowed to extinguish. The author points out in the preface hundreds of thousands of animals live out their lives in “barbaric conditions.”

Her narrative exposes various villains, showing readers how grim the puppy mills are, and praises officials and care takers who ultimately help out along the way and how they set the dogs on paths to new lives. She closes the circle by showing how Linda Jackson, who adopts Gracie, gets back as much as she gives. Jackson was not a dog lover. Gracie ended up sleeping in her bed on her pillow.

Bradley has two rescue dogs. She started covering puppy mill busts in 2002 when she was a reporter for the Great Falls Tribune. She was chosen in 2003 to spend a year as a Neiman Fellow at Harvard. This book has been four years in the making.

READERS: based on what I’ve written, don’t you think it should be required reading by all state governors and officials who regulate puppy mills? I’m not a rescuer but this book opened my eyes to the possibility of getting shelter dogs and could encourage you to do the same.