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A Dog Walks Into A Nursing Home: Lessons In The Good Life From An Unlikely Teacher (2013)

by Sue Halpern(Favorite Author)

3.63 of 5 Votes: 2

ISBN

1594487200 (ISBN13: 9781594487200)

languge

English

genre

Memoir & Autobiography

publisher

Riverhead Hardcover

review 1: Don't worry, Linda C., the dog doesn't die. Lots of the residents at the nursing home where Pansy and her person visit every week for a few years, but their stories are told with great sensitivity, humor and understanding.Holly W - I saw this on your list - Thanks!I liked Halpern's honesty in being reluctant to sometimes get close to the residents as well as the careful attention she paid not just to her dog but to their stories as well. This is not easy work. About 25 years ago, I took my young rottie to a nursing home just down the street (no training was required then, which now makes me cringe) and we visited about three times, but stopped when we found we were both exhausted. I'm sure training would have helped.The work Halpern and Pansky do is palliative - helping ... morethe residents bridge the transition from independent to dependent, from life to dying, from dying to death. It is a noble call. She quotes a number of philosophers and religious leaders as each chapter is divided up into the seven virtues. I didn't love this structure - it lacked a flow from one chapter to another - but that's subjective.Golden lines...'For my therapy dog...giving and receiving love was as much a vocation as herding was to a border collie. And the thing was, like the best love, it was antiphonal, a call and response that grew louder over time, even as some of the voices were fading. This was not because she loved unconditionally, but because she loved non-judgmentally. It was because she gave people the opportunity to love back, to express affection, to forget their afflictions,a nd to be their essential, authentic, original, loving selves." (244)..."And after our bodies were done with us, what remained? If we were lucky, someone to tell our stories...Stories breathe life." (272)
review 2: You don't have to be a dog person to enjoy this memoir. Author, Sue Halpern, never anticipated the outcome of the trail ahead when she started training her dog, Pranny, to be a therapy dog for the local nursing home. Through the training to resident visits (bonding with laughs and tears), the special nursing home events (Pranny won a round of Bingo), and dog biscuits--it was Pranny who taught Sue lessons in life's greatest and simplest treasures. less

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