A Dog Like Daisy, by Kristin Tubb (Harper Collins Publishing, 2017, 177 pages, $17,
ages 8-12 and adults)
A Book for Everyone!
Kids with dogs, kids who want dogs, military
kids, troops who have been deployed, military wives, service dog trainers and
wanna-be’s – and the list goes on.
The Cover Snagged Me!
That smile - and the flag. I'm a sucker for patriotism - and pit bull type dogs.
The Story
A colonel with PTSD selects a dog with a bad ear
from the shelter and has 10 weeks to train her with the help of a service dog
trainer: if they are successful, the VA will reimburse their expenses.
Daisy the dog has an incredible backstory that
slowly oozes out, but she also is a brilliant dog who picks up on the duties of
a service dog quite quickly – and makes “friends” with the family pet, a
bearded lizard, along the way.
Even though Daisy has a quick mind for learning,
will her backstory prevent her from passing the service dog test? How many
attempts will she be given?
And who needs her most – the colonel or his son
Micah who lives attached to headphones
(ear muzzles) (a twist ending here!). And is Daisy a pet or a tool and which
would she rather be? Useful, handy, practical but also metallic, flat, unalive.
Daisy’s Story in Her Own Words, Juxtaposed
Daisy narrates her own story and tells it with
sensitivity for all. (The reader actually feels he or she is a partner in
Daisy’s world.)
And just how Daisy tells her story is
delightfully memorable: the taste of anger, butterfly words, the fast waterfall
of freedom, disobedience tasting like dry leaves, bird chirps so beautiful a
dog could just gobble them up (except feathers taste like gloom), yellow sunshine
full of joy, swimming through each individual smell and splashing through each
scent, . . . . .
Sounds have colors, too: when the colonel claps
in delight, he claps happy purple flowers. “The shades that color their speech
and shine on their faces are usually pale, like a cold-weather sunrise.” (p. 2)
Bridging Two Worlds
When Daisy first arrives at her new home, she
smells the former canine occupant and, fearing the family and their dog will
come back, she needs to protect her new family – she marks her indoor territory
- but quickly finds out that this is the wrong thing to do! This is just one of the
creatively funny episodes that bridge the gap between what is appropriate in a
dog’s world vs what is acceptable in the human world that dogs have to learn to
live in.
Kids with Dogs
Kids with dogs will love the effortless learning
about dogs that Daisy illustrates. They will also understand the sometimes
jealousy between kid and dog.
Kids Who Want Dogs
Kids who want dogs will want a dog even more
after meeting the lovely yet normal Daisy – a Daisy who thinks and sometimes
arrives at the wrong decision.
Military Kids
Military kids will totally understand having a
dad (or mom) with PTSD and the difficulties inherent in that. They will,
however, finally realize that there are solutions out there, in time. And there
are people to help.
Troops Who have Been Deployed
Troops who have been deployed, if they are not
like the colonel himself, will know of someone like the colonel (and his
family) and will have tried to help. They may also question why someone of such
a high rank was selected to be the protagonist. Daisy could well become the
subject of family counseling sessions.
Military Wives
The oft-forgotten military wife will see herself
in Daisy’s book and perhaps some brilliant solutions may come to her. Her job
is always difficult to fulfill and even to understand empathetically: she needs
our support – and maybe her own emotional support dog! Or, at least, some time
off!
Service Dog Trainers (and Wanna-be’s)
Reward-based dog trainers will love the mention
of the SAFER assessment but will flinch at just about every scene with service
dog trainer Alex. For example, Alex is a clicker trainer (a clicker is a small
hand-held toy that makes a clicking sound when pressed to mark a dog’s behavior
as being correct), but he does not explain the purpose of the clicker before
bringing it out and using it – he also does not notice that the colonel and our
Daisy dog are startled by the clicking noise over and over again, to the point
of becoming stressed – to them, the click sounds like bones breaking - and it
echoes, doing more harm than good. A good clicker trainer would be able to
explain and modify the training for his clients.
Clicker trainers will balk on page 70: “We use
the clicker in conjunction with the treats when the dogs do something good.
Eventually we just have to click to reward them.” ‘Nuff said? This is simply
wrong. Why? Because our author unfortunately gets clicker training backwards.
It is crucial that the click come before
the treat. And the click must always
be followed by a reward – to be used without a reward following it, would
weaken the power of the click.
Reward-based dog trainers will also cringe at
the terms, pack and alpha dog because they are no longer
used.
Service Dog Situations
Service dog lessons include not only Daisy’s
task training* (not always realistic) but also a couple of Public Access
situations centering around service dog vests and certifications – and the
public who are not aware of the rights of service dogs.
Does Daisy Succeed as a Service Dog?
Our Daisy-dog wants to help so badly. She is a
bright, caring canine who sometimes wonders which person she is meant to help
more – the colonel or his son. What is her job in the end? She wants to do
good, to do her duty, to be useful. “Uselessness is the highest dishonor. It is the ultimate
cone of shame.” (p. 40)
Surprise Ending
With all its foibles, A Dog Like Daisy has many
lessons to teach all of us and does so with sensitivity, creativity and
-----------------------
*“I nudge
the knob with my nose. It’s not pain-free , but
hey! The lights come on! So that’s how that works. Now I can make my
own personal sunrise.” (p. 68)
