May5
Mother’s Day is looming. What better way to honor the mothers in your lives than with a good book?
Three Wishes: A True Story of Good Friends, Crushing Heartbreak, and Astonishing Luck on Our Way to Love and Motherhood by Carey Goldberg, Beth Jones, and Pamela Ferdinand (Little, Brown; hardcover, $24.99) chronicles how, one by one, three professionally successful women set out to achieve motherhood — using donor sperm, if necessary. As luck would have it, none of the women wind up using the vials. Instead, they find love the old-fashioned way, and the journey is riveting.
Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout (Random House, paperback, $14) is a penetrating portrait of an acerbic junior high teacher in small-town Maine who, despite her crusty outer layer, longs for a sense of connection. The story of her visit to her semi-estranged son in New York will offer a different perspective to anyone who has ever wrestled with a difficult mother.
Which brings us to a shameless plug for my very own Saving Gracie: How one dog escaped the shadowy world of American puppy mills (Wiley; hardcover, $21.99) Single mother of three Linda Jackson finds her maternal skills tested in an entirely new way when she adopts Gracie, a sickly, emotionally deprived Cavalier King Charles Spaniel. Your animal loving friends will cheer her on as she learns to bond with this needy but deserving dog.
May4
When we adopted him six years ago, Bosco the Sheltie was a bit on the wild side: he stole toast off our plates, riffled through coat pockets to pilfer treats and once even snatched part of a sandwich from a young woman who was sitting cross-legged in the grass.
The bowlegged, tricolored fellow with big ears had been taken in by Sheltie Rescue of Georgia after he was found wandering a street in Atlanta one snowy day. He was strongwilled and passionate: about trucks and buses (he circled with excitement when they passed) and even moreso food. But he was also loving, protective of his family and heartbreakingly sweet. He never stopped being grateful for his forever home. Long after the cheap brown fleecy bed I bought for him wore out, he refused to surrender it for a nice one. It was parked right next to our own bed, and at night he burrowed down into it with the same determination he brought to everything else.
Bosco was the name his foster family gave him, and it stuck. He was two years old when we got him, we think; with rescued dogs you never know for sure. In the five years we had him, he suffered a series of health problems. There were gallbladder issues. An absence of cartilage in one of his hind legs, which gave him a perpetual limp. A series of benign tumors forced the amputation of one of his toes. We fought the pain with everything from surgery to morphine drips to acupuncture. Bosco persevered as long as he could.
Finally, his body had had enough and when he lost his appetite, we knew it was time for that final visit to the vet. We kissed him goodbye a year ago today. Bosco was the neediest of our dogs, and maybe that’s why losing him hurt the worst. His forlorn-looking bed is still tucked in my closet, taking up way too much space. I’ll be ready to toss it someday, but not just yet.
April30
If this isn’t an epidemic, I don’t know what is: In the first four months of 2010, a puppy mill has been discovered in the U.S. nearly once a week.
Take a look:
JANUARY
- Fifty-one dogs were taken from a breeder in rural Minnesota
- Seventy-five dogs were found squeezed into a shed and small trailer in Houston.
- Another 75 dogs were found suffering at a kennel in Schuylkill County, Pennsylvania.
- In Amarillo, Tex., nearly 30 dogs were found in bad shape after the breeder died.
FEBRUARY
- In Kankakee County, Ill., more then 50 Maltipoos, Yorkies and pugs, 10 of them pregnant, were found in a freezing shed with broken bones, fleas and mites and internal injuries.
- In Sandusky County, Ohio, 33 basset hounds and Pomeranians were discovered mired in feces.
- A Douglass, Kansas breeder who had failed six of her last eight inspections agreed to relinquish 111 dogs, but kept several dozen.
- In Lawrence County, Tennessee, authorities removed 50 dogs said to be abused and neglected.
- Thirty basset hounds were taken from a Montgomery County, Texas kennel.
- Two dozen quivering Shih Tzus, poodles and schnauzers were seized from a puppy mill in Tulsa, Okla.
MARCH
- Three hundred Welsh corgis, poodles, pugs and other breeders were rescued from a substandard kennel in Mason City, Iowa.
- Almost 30 Yorkies and rat terriers suffering from heartworm, flease, parasites and rotten teeth were removed from a breeder in Rogersville, Ala.
- More than 70 dogs found new homes after a breeder near North Platte, Neb., surrendered them following a surprise inspection.
- Eighty-eight dogs were removed from a breeder in Upper Pittsgrove, New Jersey.
- Fifty-two poorly treated pit bulls were taken from a Minnesota kennel.
- Fifty-five thin dachshunds and Great Pyrenees found stacked in cages were removed from a puppy mill in Hurley, Missouri.
APRIL
- Approximately 230 poodles and other dogs coated in urine and feces were rescued from a home in Sparta, Tennessee.
- A Bucks County, Penn., breeder was charged with 35 counts of animal cruelty after authorities found more than 40 dogs living in filth in her home.
- In Athens, Ala., more than two dozen dead dogs were found in a breeder’s freezer. Authorities rescued 20 others.
- More than 100 matted, crippled dogs were taken from a breeder near Bristow, Okla.
- In Gregory, Michigan, a breeder was charged with neglecting more than two dozen Chihuahuas, miniature Dobermans and other breeds.
Now check out this puppy mill rescue celebrating his freedom.
