Lucky Dogs

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.

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.

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!

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

The paths of two women on opposite ends of a high-profile sexual abuse scandal set them on a devastating collision course. "Part thriller, part Hollywood satire, Lucky Dogs is a brash, sometimes heartbreaking saga in which trauma and self-preservation converge across decades and continents. This is Helen Schulman's best novel yet."—Jennifer Egan, best-selling author of A Visit from the Goon Squad and The Candy House On a sultry summer night in Paris, two women meet in line at an ice cream kiosk on the Ile de la Cité. One is tall, fair, striking, with an indeterminate accent. The other, a troubled American TV star, is hiding her beauty and identity under a shapeless sweatshirt, wearing sunglasses even in the darkness. When leering male tourists hassle the pair, the blonde pulls out a knife and a sisterhood is born. Both women have been victims of male violence, and both are warriors—one trained and calculating, one instinctually ferocious. They each think they know who they are dealing with. But both are very, very wrong. In a story that unfolds with unexpected humor and the pace of a thriller, acclaimed novelist Helen Schulman lays bare what happens to women—no matter how fortunate they may appear to be on the surface—whose lives have been warped by brutality and misogyny. The issues are universal, but the core of the story is intimate: a passionate exploration of love, betrayal, and survival. Lucky Dogs asks and answers a shattering question: How could one woman so utterly betray another?

From critically acclaimed author-illustrator Joowon Oh comes a poignant picture book about the special bonds between a girl and her foster dogs, with heartwarming messages of compassion, selflessness, and finding a home—in each other. One day, Ruth and her mom are in the park and see a pet adoption fair. Ruth is drawn to a cute little dog, but they are moving soon and can’t adopt. However, they can foster for a couple of months, and that’s how they wind up with Ginger. Then Daisy. Then Cody, a special-needs dog with injured hind legs. Can Ruth help Cody find his forever home? Lucky Dogs is a vibrant and charming story about three adorable dogs down on their luck and a girl with a big heart who wants to save them. Each hello is a delight as these furry friends teach our young heroine how to overcome her worries and be joyful, curious, and brave.

"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"--

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