Dogs and Underdogs: Finding Happiness at Both Ends of the Leash

This is the memoir of one woman, her dogs, and the lives they touched, and it reads as an ode to the symbiotic relationship between man and canine. Abbott (Haiti: A Shattered Nation) takes readers along on her journey from rural Quebec and revolutionary Haiti to a Toronto hospital, an Ohio prison, and the streets of Serbia, introducing the people and the dogs she met along the way. She's saved numerous elderly, ailing, and unadoptable dogs and connected with others who give dogs a second chance, such as the American prison inmates who train dogs, and the wife of an ex-ambassador to Serbia. Most touching is how the dogs help rehabilitate the people who care for them. The chapters describing the prison training program are written from the point of view of the inmates. It's wrenching and moving, but disappointingly, it's not entirely factual, as the author notes at the end: details were altered for security reasons, and the dialogue is based on prisoners' recollections in interviews. Abbott's tone is a bit pretentious and self-righteous, but she certainly deserves tremendous credit for her selfless giving. Photos. Agent: Heide Lange, Greenburger Associates. (May)