A Dog Called Hope: A
Wounded Warrior and the Service Dog Who Saved Him, by Jason Morgan and Damien Lewis* (Simon and Schuster, 2017, 324
pages, $26)
Imagine
Imagine you are a special operations-type Air
Force guy, fully physically fit and well-prepared for the job. You brief others
on your team.
Then, it happens. You are stationed in a foreign
country, drive into an ambush and the vehicle turns over. On you. You are
medevac’d back to the States but will never walk again. Your future lies in a
chair – a wheelchair.
The pain is excruciating. Your marriage breaks
up. How can a guy in a wheel chair ever raise three boys alone?
Then, It Happens!
After a few years, quite by chance you meet
someone from a service dog organization and, after contemplating a while, you
apply for a service dog, a service dog who changes your life and gives you
meaning and a mission for living: spreading the word about service dogs for
veterans and living life to the fullest.
Napal is a Black Lab
Napal is so much more than ‘just a dog.’ He
picks things up, he finds lost keys, he opens and closes doors – but, most of
all, he is love and joy and fun. And love changes your life and the lives of
your sons.
A Star Among Stars
Napal is a
star among stars. A service dog can be a bridge to a wider body of humanity. Service
dogs change every life they touch, especially their new human family who
becomes nearly normal again with relief that their person now has someone to
help take care of him not to mention the independence a service dog brings – a
new start on life.
Don’t Sweat the Small Stuff, or,
Choose Your Battles
For some
reason, DogEvals reviews a lot of service dog books ** and military books***
- perhaps because one of us is a veteran and a dog trainer.
A Dog Called Hope earns an A-minus**** from DogEvals.
The good is a simply amazing story, well-written to a T. Would you believe
Napal’s puppy raiser, Jim, was a wheelchair-bound veteran himself and Napal was
selected to assist a wheelchair-bound veteran? But be prepared to shed a few
happy and a few sad tears.
And the
lesson Morgan and Napal convey is to not sweat the small things. Sure, the duo
was refused service when trying to purchase some snacks at a gas station, a
doctor refused to discuss laboratory results with them immediately before
surgery because of Napal’s presence (legal), and Jason had to (chose to) leave
the field when coaching a boy’s football game because one parent was afraid his
chair would get out of control and injure her son.
Napal lives
for the day – today and every day (but too few, in the end). He brings Morgan
back down to earth and tells him that they are legally in the right but that
trying to explain their rights is simply not worth it sometimes. Other times,
the world bends over backwards to get to know the duo and do whatever they can
to make life easier. They even visit the White House!
How Does Napal Do It All?
“The
amazing thing with this kind of training is that Jim [puppy raiser] never once
scolds Napal. Jim’s golden rule is: Reinforce and praise the positive. Find the
good in the dog, not the bad. Don’t overcorrect the bad; seek the good to
praise. We don’t. Punish. The dog. It isn’t right to, and in any case, it
doesn’t work.” (p. 178)
Hope is an excellent uplifting way to
spend a weekend. It may just change your life.
***Megan Leavy, The Places in Between (Afghanistan), It’s What I Do (female combat photographer), War Machine, War Dogs,
Dogs of War.
****only an
A-minus due to terms like ‘command’ and an inappropriate visit to a zoo
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