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Doctor dogs : how our best friends are becoming our best medicine  Cover Image Book Book

Doctor dogs : how our best friends are becoming our best medicine / Maria Goodavage.

Summary:

Meet dogs who detect cancer and Parkinson's disease, and dogs who alert people to seizures and diabetic lows or highs and other life-threatening physical ailments. Bestselling author Maria Goodavage brings us behind the scenes of cutting-edge science at top research centres, and into the lives of people whose well-being depends on their devoted, highly skilled personal medical dogs. With her signature wit and passion, Goodavage explores how doctor dogs are becoming our happy allies in the fight against dozens of physical and mental conditions.

Record details

  • ISBN: 9781524743048
  • ISBN: 1524743046
  • Physical Description: x, 353 pages, 16 unnumbered pages of plates : colour illustrations ; 24 cm
  • Publisher: New York, New York : Dutton, [2019]

Content descriptions

Bibliography, etc. Note:
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Subject: Dogs > Therapeutic use.
Service dogs.
Human-animal relationships.

Available copies

  • 9 of 10 copies available at BC Interlibrary Connect. (Show)
  • 1 of 1 copy available at Prince Rupert Library.

Holds

  • 0 current holds with 10 total copies.
Show Only Available Copies
Location Call Number / Copy Notes Barcode Shelving Location Holdable? Status Due Date
Prince Rupert Library 615.85158 Good (Text) 33294002077790 Adult Non-Fiction Volume hold Available -

  • Kirkus Reviews : Kirkus Reviews 2019 September #1
    Dogs as doctors? Yes—psychiatrists, diagnosticians, even healers, as journalist Goodavage (Secret Service Dogs: The Heroes Who Protect the President of the United States, 2016, etc.) writes in her latest canine tribute. It's long been observed that a dog is a human's best friend, helpful in all sorts of situations, from sniffing out skiers buried in avalanches to interdicting illegal shipments of drugs and explosives. In this anecdotally driven book of reportage, the author allows that other animals have better senses of smell than dogs, but few have the discipline to combine their olfactory talents with the patience and alertness that allow them to perform tasks intimately connected to human health. In recent years, dogs have been trained to detect when a person suffering from diabetes might be headed for a blood-sugar crash or when someone with postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome might be about to faint. As Goodavage writes in the latter instance, one woman's wheelchair "collects dust most weeks because [her dog] can give her warning a few minutes ahead of her syncope, allowing her enough time to get into a safe spot." Other dogs have been trained to detect the presence of cancers, t he onset of Parkinson's and other motor disorders, and a host of other ailments. Goodavage imagines a time when technology will allow dogs to "speak" with voice alerts announcing that their charges are in need of attention, as the dog then "leads you to someone who's having a severe allergic reaction, a seizure, or other medical emergency." The book is overlong, with too many episodes adding up to the same conclusion—namely, that dogs can do wondrous things to improve our lives and health. Still, if Queen Elizabeth II, attending a demonstration of medical detection dogs, was moved to wonder whether dogs might be stationed at airports to find malaria victims, the author's narrative might inspire thoughts of other applications. Fans of Elizabeth Marshall Thomas' Hidden Lives of Dogs and similar books will want to have a look. A somewhat padded text that will nonetheless find plenty of readers. Copyright Kirkus 2019 Kirkus/BPI Communications. All rights reserved.
  • Library Journal Reviews : LJ Reviews 2019 May

    Goodavage adds to her New York Times best-selling series on what dogs do for us by showing them as good doctors who can interface with technology in emergencies, help patients with mental disorders, and perhaps even to detect cancer, heart disease, and seizures.

    Copyright 2019 Library Journal.

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