At twenty-two, Julie Barton collapsed on her kitchen floor in Manhattan. She was one year out of college and severely depressed. Summoned by Julie's incoherent phone call, her mother raced from Ohio to New York and took her home.

Haunted by troubling childhood memories, Julie continued to sink into suicidal depression. Psychiatrists, therapists and family members tried to intervene, but nothing reached her until the day she decided to do one hopeful thing: adopt a Golden Retriever puppy she named Bunker. Dog Medicine captures the anguish of depression, the slow path to recovery, the beauty of forgiveness, and the astonishing ways animals can help heal even the most broken hearts and minds.

Sent off on it's first bookcrossing journey - hope you enjoy it :-)

Thanks! This looks interesting.

Pic: George outside the Butchers of Hampstead. Met him several times shopping around.

Making more than a mental note that I've tagged Poodlesister with this book and will read it before the Falkirk Convention in June.

Began reading. Maybe I'll learn something about depression, a friend of mine was diagnosed having "medium" depression on the scale of mild, medium and severe. My first thought was "get a dog", but she also has MS and lives alone, so it would not be right for the dog.

Picked the book up again. I'm so happy for not having kids, with my luck I would have had three like Clay. If they hadn't killed each other I might have locked them up and thrown away the key.

Still reading. I thought ”all” Americans have their own therapists, at least those who have the income of a lawyer to support them. Yet the parents do not realize a recovery from so far down does not happen by itself. On the other hand, they had let Clay terrorise her sister all those years, so why would they be any wiser now? Yet again I feel blessed of having no kids, when reading this.
Dogs are certainly good therapists, but the totally wrong dog Julie took home from the pound shows that a disturbed person should not be made responsible for aqcuiring or solely looking after a dog. The worst animal neglect cases are usually due to owners losing the ability to take care of themselves, let alone their kids or animals.

Just having written the previous JE, it turned out that therapists had been tried already before the breakdown. What a lousy advice one had given, to confront Clay on her own. He should have been taken along to a therapy session and tried to discuss the problem there. Gosh, HE should have been taken to therapy as a kid and much could have been avoided. These parents drive me nuts (pun intended).

Well. Julie now has Bunker and does her best to turn him into a dog with separation anxiety by not leaving his side hardly ever and then going to work for six hours. Pups should be taught early on to be on their on, short times to begin with. Covid taught us that old dogs can also become stressed when owners were at home for two years and then dogs were again left home alone, something we did not anticipate to be a problem.
Keeping a dog in a crate except for transportation or temporarily, like for a day in a dog show or recovering of a health issue, say a discus prolapse, is illegal in Finland. So you can't leave a dog in the crate for the duration of your workday, which I think is good. Sweden has gone even further, if you are going to be away for longer than six hours, the dog needs to go to doggy daycare or have a dog-sitter.
Julie is keeping me biting my nails about Bunker's health issue. Panostitis springs first to mind.

Nope, it wasn't panostitis, which is the usual case with a rapidly growing large dog having undulating, screaming pain to the touch of the leg. I was so mad reading this. Julie had taken this puppy being neutered, but never mentioned that vet about the pain episodes. How could she be that neglegent, when claiming to love the dog?? And how could she not see the pain the dog was in the whole time, yet claiming to be his soulmate? I never seaze to wonder how blind people can be to the pain of their pets. And how selfish. I would not have put Bunker through those operations. He hurt like hell afterwards and was never been able to run like a normal dog. With people you can explain why it hurts and for how long, but dogs only know the present time. And people can tell later on that they are still painful and probably need some kind of medication the rest of their lives after surgeries like that.
Also Bunker's final days were miserable and again Julie was selfish for not putting him down sooner. I would never sell her a puppy, having read this horrifying book.
Poor Greg, he didn't have it easy, either. But the odd thing was how Melissa called Julie after all those years and put together "the house band" which turned into two marriages.
The book will return to the UK in June.

Enjoy!

Thanks for the wishlist book and the huge bar of chocolate. It was great to see you again!

I was shocked by how abusive Clay was to Julie. She seemed to underplay how awful it was. But I suppose if that’s what you’ve always experienced and your hopeless parents ignore it, that would feel normal. I’m so glad my older brother wasn’t like this. I told him about the book and he said he did remember kicking me once and then feeling very guilty about it. The whole family needed therapy together. So much anger bubbling away. I also question how you could ignore your dog’s pain. That said I’ve never suffered such depths of depression or been treated so badly myself. I totally fell for Bunker and can understand how being around him would help one get through the toughest times.

This will be going into the UK Non-fiction Bookbox

Taken out of the Non Fiction Bookbox. TBR and passed on.

I am not one to shy away from tough themes or writing but I can't read about animal cruelty. The previous reviews have said that Julie had neglected and was cruel to her dog. Sorry but I have to pass this book on.

Releasing into round 6 of the Non-fiction bookbox

Chosen from non fiction bookbox. Not sure how I'm going to get on with it after the reviews here.