Susan Morse

After mourning the death of their Australian shepherd, Arrow, and with their youngest two children about to start college, it's time to add a new dog to the family. Or so Susan Morse thinks. Husband David is not so sure. He's especially not sure they want a rescue greyhound. But since David had more or less sprung Arrow on her as a surprise, all those years ago, Susan figures it's her turn to choose, and she's become fascinated by greyhounds.

Lilly is sweet, loving, intelligent, wary of men, suffering from separation anxiety... She's not going to be an easy dog, but Susan is in love. She sets to work helping Lilly adapt to her safe, comfortable new life, and to weave her into her and David's new life with the children out of the house, leaving Susan free to travel with him to his acting jobs on location.

Then Susan gets ambushed by a health crisis threatening to upend all her plans and hopes.

This is a short, charming memoir. Susan has a sense of humor about the challenges she faces, and the members of this family love and respect each other in all their individual quirkiness. Her storytelling style is cheerfully non-sequential, and family history and the challenges of raising a secure, happy family around the challenges and unpredictability of David's acting career are interwoven with the challenges and issues of Lilly's emotional recovery and Susan's own health problems.

Recommended.

I received a free electronic galley from the publisher via NetGalley.… (meer)

Susan's book is a great example of how dogs quietly lace up our lives before we realize it. The book isn't about the dog, as the author notes on a page prefacing the story, but the dog makes a difference in the lives of this family. I didn't know much about greyhounds and learned much reading this account.

The book is lighthearted throughout with plenty of humor. The author is married to actor. The story follows a segment of their lives, with children and greyhound, and cat. It's entirely human and down to earth. The dog weaves throughout their lives and changes everything in subtle ways, that many of us wouldn't think were so subtle. This family rolls along in their own different lifestyle that is nonetheless relatable at some level for many readers. The author suffers a debilitating illness of little-known origin and overcomes it. The children grow and depart, in fits and starts as many children do. This is a funny, funny lady. I'd love to meet her.

Readers who enjoy this kind of story should relish this delightful book. I received the book from GR giveaways.

… (meer)

The Dog Stays in the Picture was just a bit of a disappointment, mostly because the dog - a rescue greyhound called Lilly - wasn't the focus for so much of it. Okay, I should have read the sub-title. I was expecting a book about a recue greyhound and instead it's a book about the author. They do tie in from time to time, such as when author Susan Morse talks about her family origins, before going on to Lilly's - and of course, greyhound owners do that, because their lineage is so carefully recorded. They all trace back to a very few dogs, and many have distinguished doggy forbears (fordogs?) I've been through it all with the rescue in our family, Milly: it's easy when you have the dog's kennel name and ID to look her up online and even see her racing history. Even if you don't approve of racing there's something about knowing your about own dog's life, and like Morse, I also got interested in, and researched in a desultory - but for a day or two obsessive - way. And I'm glad that Morse takes time to make clear some of the horrors of racing, which make our survivor dogs so much more precious and admirable - you went through all that, and you can find so much love and warmth for us? Of course you can have the sofa to yourself, darling, and let me get you some cheese.

I suppose, too, that Susan Morse and I have more in common than a rescue grey - much of the book centres on the disabling condition she develops, eventually diagnosed as anaplasmosis, a tick-born disease. While looking for a diagnosis she inevitably went down other routes with a nod to hypermobility syndromes and similar, but I must admit to having lost my evangelical interest in chronic conditions, and I wanted more about the dog, dammit!

If you're thinking of adopting a rescue greyhound, this might be a good place to start, especially if you are interested in recent American television series (Morse's husband is an actor). I don't think you'd emerge with any illusions about just how demanding a grey can be, especially when they haven't had much socialisation, or a proper puppyhood. But you might also get just an inkling of how rewarding and lovable they can be. Here's Morse on one of my favourite characteristics:

"I can't get enough of Lilly's glorious thirty-second speed demonstrations. have to catch her in the right mood, usually sometime in the late afternoon, when she rouses from her nap and starts hinting about dinner... she gets this goofy grin on her face, spinning madly in place for a while sort of winding herself up, and then she's off for a few gleeful laps around the yard, just for the joy of it."

Yup, recognise that - Milly even chooses the same time of day.

My copy was courtesy of NetGalley.… (meer)