Love Is the Best Medicine: What Two Dogs Taught One Veterinarian about Hope, Humility, and Everyday Miracles (Paperback)
By Nick Trout
Review & Description
A book guaranteed to touch anyone who has ever had a beloved pet…
From instant New York Times bestseller, Dr. Nick Trout comes another touching and heartfelt story from the front lines of veterinary medicine—the story of two dogs who forever changed the way he thought about life, death, fate and love.
Helen is an older cocker spaniel found neglected and abandoned in a restaurant parking lot one rainy night. Despite her mangy condition and terrible smell, Ben and Eileen fall in love with the pitiful creature and decide to take her in. But just as Helen is rescued from a sad life on the streets and enveloped in a loving home with all the creature comforts an old dog could ask for, a tumor is discovered and she's given a devastating prognosis. All Ben and Eileen want is for Helen to beat the odds and survive for one more summer so that she can have one chance to swim in the ocean on the family's annual trip to Prince Edward Island. In short, they want a miracle.
Meanwhile, fourteen-month-old miniature pinscher Cleo keeps breaking one leg after another which devastates her poor owner, Sandi. While Cleo is visiting Sandi's daughter, Sonja, in Bermuda, she succumbs to yet another fracture. Distraught that the injury happened on her watch, Sonja makes a plan to fly Cleo to Boston to get the specialist care she needs before Sandi even finds out. Enter Dr. Trout who presides over what should be a fairly routine surgery. What happens next forever links two families, their dogs and a beloved veterinarian and teaches them all a lesson about grace that resonates to this day.
Love is the Best Medicine immerses you in the true life drama of beloved pets whose lives hang in the balance. Every page underscores the profound bond we have with the animals in our lives and the incredible responsibility Nick carries as their healer. Certainly Dr. Trout has an impressive array of fancy equipment, training and skills at his disposable, but his most important tool (as he persuasively illustrates here) is a fundamental belief in the power of hope, humility, and grace.
Wry, charming, and intensely affecting, Love is the Best Medicine is a one of a kind story only the winsome Dr. Trout could deliver and is destined to become a favorite for animal lovers.
From the Hardcover edition.Lisa Scottoline Reviews Love is the Best Medicine
Lisa Scottoline is the New York Times bestselling author of Why My Third Husband Will Be a Dog, Lady Killer, Look Again, and Think Twice. Read her guest review of Love is the Best Medicine:
A couple of years ago, at the Spring Book and Author Luncheon in Charleston, South Carolina, I met a veterinarian, Nick Trout, who was there to talk about his first book, Tell Me Where It Hurts. We got to talking, not least because I am a dog nut (two Goldens, a Corgi and two King Charles Cavaliers), and I reckoned, no harm in trying to eek out some free veterinary advice, especially about my beloved Retriever Lucy. Lucy had passed away only a few days earlier and I was haunted by a feeling that I could have done more, that I wasn’t able to physically be with her, to hold her, connect with her and ease her into the next life in the end. Nick hardly knew me but I could tell he got it, understood what it means to have an animal in your life and how we pet owners struggle with the burden of loss when we are left behind to pick up the pieces. On the plane home I read his book, loved, loved, loved it, and ordered him to write more.
Thankfully, he has, and in Love is the Best Medicine, Nick radiates the exact same sensitivity, empathy, and understanding of loss that I felt the day I met him. The book features his trademark humor, with funny stories pulled from the examination rooms and operating suites of one of the top veterinary hospitals in the country, but at its heart is the true story of two dogs that you cannot help but fall in love with and root for--a Min Pin puppy named Cleo and a geriatric Cocker Spaniel named Helen. The stories of these two dogs symbolize for all of us pet people exactly what it means to love an animal--and it’s so fascinating to get the view from the other side of table. I don’t want to give too much away, but I’ll say this: as someone who knows a thing or two about losing a cherished animal, I found the story surprising and comforting. It reminded me once again that the universe works in mysterious, rich, and wonderful ways.
This book, too, is rich and wonderful, and you should read it. --Lisa Scottoline
(Photo © April Narby)
Look Inside Love is the Best Medicine
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| Cleo, 6 months old | Cleo in her favorite pink bag | Helen | Helen playing in ivy |
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