cover image The Good Shepherd: A Special Dog's Gift of Healing

The Good Shepherd: A Special Dog's Gift of Healing

Jo Coudert. Andrews McMeel Publishing, $19.95 (224pp) ISBN 978-0-8362-6756-3

Grizzly, a German shepherd, and his owner, teenager Jeremy, were inseparable through the boy's harrowing battle with bone cancer in Oregon in the late 1980s. After Jeremy's death, his mother, Lana, was so emotionally, mentally and physically devastated that she considered suicide. Grizzly's attentiveness at this time played a major role in Lana's recovery, according to this absorbing report from Coudert (Seven Cats and the Art of Living, etc.). Jeremy's last wish was that Lana and Grizzly find a way to help other sick children, a wish realized by Lana's founding of the Good Shepherd Association, then of the Utah Animal-Assisted Therapy Association. Through UAATA, dedicated owners and their specially trained pets (cats and a rabbit in addition to dogs) visit ill or handicapped children in hospitals, bringing cheer and comfort. Coudert's account of Grizzly's role in bringing joy to Jeremy and in healing his mother, as well as of the creation of UAATA, is smoothly written and of great potential appeal to those who relished Animals as Teachers and Healers, by Susan McElroy, who contributes a foreword here. Photos. (Oct.)