A Lucky Dog

Lucky Dog is a hilarious and heartwarming memoir by a renowned veterinary oncologist who tells us what we can learn about health care and ourselves from our most beloved pets. What happens when a veterinary surgical oncologist (laymen’s term: cancer surgery doctor) thinks she has cancer herself? Enter Sarah Boston: a vet who suspects a suspicious growth in her neck is thyroid cancer. From the moment she uses her husband’s portable ultrasound machine to investigate her lump — he’s a vet, too — it’s clear this will not be your typical cancer memoir. She takes us on a hysterical and thought-provoking journey through the human health care system from the perspective of an animal doctor. Weaving funny and poignant stories of dogs she’s treated along the way, this is an insightful memoir about what the human medical world can learn from the way we treat our canine counterparts. Lucky Dog teaches us to trust our instincts, be our own advocates, and laugh while we’re doing it.

Rescued from an animal shelter on the first night of Hanukkah, Latke has trouble learning the house rules. Despite a series of mishaps, he is one Lucky Dog!

The true story of Owney, a dog who traveled all over the U.S.A. on mail trains from 1888 to 1896.

"Carly Taylor's life is in a spiral. She's drowning in work, her divorced parents are going through their midlife crises, and somehow Carly's sister convinces her to foster Roscoe - a basset hound rescue with an aggressive case of the blues. But when Carly comes home late from work one day to discover that the dog walker has accidentally switched out Roscoe for another perkier, friendlier basset hound, she has reached the end of her leash. Max Sheffington was prepared to throw down over his missing dog - turns out his sweet, cheerful Mable is now a depressed male basset hound - but now that he's met the fiery Carly... more enticing activities come to mind"--

When walking the French Quarter and watching a Lucky Dog salesman set up that colorful cart and call out to entice customers, don't you wonder how such a business works? As a knowing review in Rolling Stone stated, "People have always loved the cart and harbored a mysterious need to ride it. Revelers have been known to climb on top of the rolling wienies, screaming 'Yippee kaya!' as vendors stoically push them back to the barn at 4 a.m." Since 1947 the red and yellow carts have trumpeted good fortune and sustenance. Jerry E. Strahan recounts the wild adventures of the Bourbon Street wienie salesmen but also takes readers well beyond New Orleans. In fact, he takes them halfway around the world, where this unique pushcart business maneuvered its way through the bureaucratic red tape of a communist country to become a licensed corporation in the People's Republic of China. In China, two points quickly became apparent to Strahan. First, 99 percent of the Chinese population had no idea what a Lucky Dog cart represented. One elderly passerby declared it to be a missile. Second, the success or failure of any joint venture in the Asian nation is directly proportional to the political clout of that company's local partner. Lucky Dogs also recounts how the business and its vendors survived Hurricane Katrina. Miraculously, it reopened only six months after the storm in a city where more than 80 percent of the landmass had been flooded and where less than 40 percent of the population had returned. To reestablish itself in what many described as Third World conditions, the company had to transform its operation. This work mixes business history, autobiography, survival story, and an insider's look at the bizarre lives of some of Bourbon Street's most quirky characters--the dauntless Lucky Dog vendors. Both humorous and tragic, though it may read like fiction, it is, for better or worse, all fact.

Hunter, my majestic eighty-six-pound mutt, was the love of my life for thirteen years. I was addicted to looking at him—every twitch of his ear was fascinating to me. I've taken thousands of photographs of him, dozens even in the same position. He was "my lucky dog." I adopted Hunter when he was two. He came with that name, his former owner a fan of Hunter S. Thompson. I noticed Hunter's photo in the window of a pet store in Vermont and brought him home. If I was the lucky break in his life, he was the transforming experience in mine. Before, I was a little wild. As a photographer, I traveled around the world, picking up and leaving on a dime. Life was exciting: photo shoots in Paris, Haiti, the Himalayas, the Andes, and even the Amazon. Hunter tamed me. I couldn't be away from him for more than five hours at a time. I had no children of my own; Hunter taught me about responsibility, love, and devotion in a way that was inaccessible to me with "people." —Mellon

In the desolate wilderness of the snowbound high country, Hagger, a fugitive haunted by his dark past, stumbles upon a forgotten mountain cabin. Within its walls, an unexpected encounter awaits him—a lone white bull terrier, abandoned and left to the whims of fate. As Hagger's hardened heart softens, a bond forms between man and dog, leading to a transformative journey of redemption and self-discovery. 'A Lucky Dog' is a gripping tale of unlikely companionship, where the power of compassion and loyalty becomes a beacon of hope, offering Hagger a chance at redemption he never thought possible.

Jack the dog, gifted with a great sense of smell, is always sniffing up trouble.