Love Is the Best Medicine: What Two Dogs Taught One Veterinarian about Hope, Humility, and Everyday Miracles
- ISBN13: 9780767931977
- Shape up: NEW
- Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
Product Description
A book guaranteed to touch anyone who has ever had a beloved pet…
From instant New York Times epic, Dr. Nick Trout comes another touching and heartfelt tale from the front lines of veterinary medicine—the tale of two dogs who forever changed the way he plotting about life, death, fate and like.
Helen is an older cocker spaniel found neglected and abandoned in a restaurant parking lot one rainy night. Despite her mangy shape up and terrible smell, Ben and Eileen fall in like with the pitiful creature and choose 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 ancient dog may possibly question for, a tumor is exposed 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 opportunity to swim in the ocean on the family’s annual trip to Prince Edward Island. In small, they want a miracle.
Meanwhile, fourteen-month-ancient minuscule pinscher Cleo keeps breaking one leg after another which devastates her poor owner, Sandi. Even as Cleo is visiting Sandi’s daughter, Sonja, in Bermuda, she succumbs to yet another break. Distraught that the injury happened on her watch, Sonja makes a plot to glide 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 honestly 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.
Like is the Best Medicine immerses you in the right 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 vital tool (as he persuasively illustrates here) is a fundamental belief in the power of hope, humility, and grace.
Wry, charming, and intensely affecting, Like is the Best Medicine is a one of a kind tale only the winsome Dr. Trout may possibly deliver and is destined to become a favorite for animal lovers.Amazon.com Review
Lisa Scottoline Reviews Like is the Best Medicine
Lisa Scottoline is the New York Times bestselling author of Why My Third Spouse Will Be a Dog, Lady Killer, Look Again, and Reckon Twice. Read her guest review of Like is the Best Medicine:
A link 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 may possibly 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 may possibly 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 Like 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 brand humor, with amusing tales pulled from the examination rooms and operating suites of one of the top veterinary hospitals in the people, but at its heart is the right tale of two dogs that you cannot help but fall in like with and root for–a Min Pin puppy named Cleo and a geriatric Cocker Spaniel named Helen. The tales of these two dogs symbolize for all of us pet people just so what it means to like 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 bringing up the rear a cherished animal, I found the tale 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)
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I am an shameless Dog Lover. Even as my normal means for reading is my Kindle, the cover on this book aptly away drew me to buy and read it (even without a bulldog in the book). The tale is a excellent one. Dr. Trout is clearly an extremely capable yet most humble man. In my world of surgeons who operate upon people, that is a most rare combination. The way both canine protagonists come together in Boston is a wonderful tale, and the impact upon one, through Trout, upon another is uplifting. I must but agree with a prior review that the descriptions and metaphors that the author uses, and the selection of overly complex words was awkward to read. Dr Trout is a busy veterinary general practitioner and I don’t blame him as much as I do the full time professional editor who allowed him to publish the finished work this way.
Rating: 3 / 5
Nick Trout must reckon he’s Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, and Stephen King all rolled into one. This book is absolutely over-written. It is filled with unnecessary tangents, pointless descriptions, and useless metaphors. And why use one word when 17 will do? Whatever top he’s trying to make is buried in so much literariness that it is absolutely obscure to me. After 2 pages, I found myself skimming to try to find the meat of the matter. Then I ongoing scanning, turning page after page. Then I gave up. This thing reads like it was just a few pages of real material before the publisher told Trout to pad it out to book part.
I would give it no stars if I may possibly. I don’t urge it to anyone.
Rating: 1 / 5
Most dog lovers will delight in this book. As the tale alternates between two lovable dogs with some real health issues, the reader will be drawn to their tales and outcomes. Nick Trout can tell a excellent tale without oversentimentalizing.
Unfortunately, I couldn’t quite connect with this tale. As a person who has been owned by many dogs and who often lives with a menagerie of other animals, I am well-familiar with the sickness, disease, and death of my furry and feathered friends. But at one top, one has to choose how much care can I provide and am I just extending the animal’s pain. I know this will not be a well loved viewpoint but it is mine.
Rating: 4 / 5
No guts, no gore. Just an observably brilliant veterinary general practitioner who is also a super novelist! Can’t wait for his other book, Tell Me Where It Hurts, to arrive!
Dr. Trout writes about real feelings for his patients AND for their owners/caretakers. It’s refreshing to see such empathy and compassion place into words. You will laugh, weep, and have a new appreciation for your pet’s doctor after reading this book.
Rating: 5 / 5
This book is something every animal lover can identify with and hence makes for a quick, enjoyable and simple read. It goes into the tale of two dogs that had a significant impact on the author’s views and life (I don’t want to say much more or else the tales would be ruined before you even read them!). This is something (lessons, events, thrills and spills) any pet owner can relate to and hence makes for a sometimes heartworming (pun!) and sometimes tearful tale. As a dog owner for my entire life, I was very touched by how this doctor relates to his patients as unfortunately not all veterinarians are like him (as I’ve experience first hand).
What’s even as vital, that Dr. Trout underlines in his narrative, is the vital veterinarian-client-animal and the client-animal bond that veterinarians have to deal with. Veterinarians, all too often, handle not only their patients but also their owners as well and Dr. Troutt delves into this matter as well.
Very enjoyable read.
Rating: 5 / 5