The Possibility Dogs: What I Learned from Second-Chance Rescues About Service, Hope, and Healing

“Reading The Possibility Dogs is like taking an amazing literary journey with a dear friend by your side. The characters you meet will enchant you, but the storyteller will capture your heart. If you love dogs, this is a can’t-miss book written by a kindred spirit.” —Jennifer Arnold, author of Through a Dog’s Eyes and In a Dog’s Heart

After a grisly search-and-rescue operation led to troubling consequences for author Susannah Charleson, she found that her relationship with Puzzle, her search dog, made a surprising contribution to her own healing. Inspired by that experience, Charleson learned to identify abandoned dogs with service potential, plucking them from shelters and training them to work with disabled human partners, to whom the dogs bring assistance, comfort, and hope.

Similar to her best-selling first book, Scent of the Missing, Charleson’s The Possibility Dogs goes beyond the science that explains working canines to tell the stories of the dogs themselves. Like Merlin, a black Lab puppy who had been thrown away in a garbage bag and now stabilizes his partner’s panic attacks. And service dog Jake Piper, a formerly starving pit bull mix who went from abandoned to irreplaceable. This heartwarming combination of memoir and research is sure to both inform and inspire.

“What an amazing book. Combine love, knowledge, and real-life drama with pitch-perfect writing, and you’ll end up with The Possibility Dogs. Simply brilliant!” —Patricia McConnell, author of The Other End of the Leash

“Insightful and earthy, Charleson is never maudlin. She keeps it real . . . All the stories have tremendous heart and power and you believe Charleson when she writes: ‘Any dog can surprise you,’ and ‘great dogs can come in odd packages.’” —Boston Globe