100 books like Free Days with George

As I’m writing this, my golden retriever Edie is resting her head in my lap, eyes closed in contentment. Domesticated dogs have learned to love humans because we feed and shelter them, of course, but now that I’m living with my third golden retriever, I’m certain there’s something deeper happening. I just can’t prove it. But canine behaviorist Clive Wynne is using his own scientific lab, DNA tests, measuring oxytocin levels, and embarking (pun oh so intended) on a globe-hopping research trip with a stop at a wolf sanctuary (!) to prove that I’m right - dogs really do care about us. I feel so smug.

Put a golden retriever on a book cover and I’m sold. From the opening scene, when Julie has a panic attack in her New York kitchen, I was pulled into this heart-cracking memoir about a young woman haunted by unresolved childhood trauma. She tries all the usual methods to combat depression, from therapy to Zoloft, yet the magic pill is found in the love of a golden retriever named Bunker. Having something else to take care of helped Julie get outside her own head. I felt a kinship with Julie; that sometimes the way a dog looks at you with such love in their eyes is the only thing that can make up for the ways we weren’t seen as kids.

This book made me laugh and cry, and all the emotions in between.

Dogs and anthropomorphism are two of my favourite things, so I was totally on board from the start. The characters jumped off the page into my imagination. Beautifully written, Lily and the Octopus is a true-to-life story with enormous heart. The octopus character is compelling and creepy.

This is a book about finding unconditional love with a dog when you never got it at home. Lauren and I both had aloof mothers. Mine was lost in post-divorce depression and hers to alcohol and pills. For daughters like us, the unconditional love of dog isn’t just nice, it’s vital. Lauren takes her 160-lb English Mastiff to college, and afterward to a micro-apartment in New York, making every ridiculous accommodation she can for her giant dog. But when Gizelle gets sick, Lauren creates a bucket list full of steak dinners and winter beach visits to make sure her most loyal friend has the best life possible of what remains. This book reminded me that dogs have such a grace about how they love us, and wouldn’t it be wonderful if more of us humans could love that bravely? 

I absolutely loved this book. One of the most beautiful stories I’ve ever read, it’s heartfelt and hilarious. After running his own bookshop in Seattle, Andrew Bloomfield moves to Hollywood to become a screenwriter and discovers a colony of feral cats living in his backyard. He was not a cat person. After witnessing one too many raccoon and coyote attacks and hungry, crying kittens, he and his two female housemates intervene and start caring for these wild yet vulnerable cats who transform his life. With his sharp wit and keen eye for detail, Bloomfield is a brilliant storyteller. I got completely caught up in the soap-opera dramas and death-defying moments of these cats, along with the heartaches and triumphs of rescuing them.

When photographer Lori Fusaro and I were traveling around the country working on our book together, we made a point of hightailing it to Maine so we could visit the idyllic retirement oasis created by author David Rosenfelt and his wife Debbie Myers for themselves and more than 20 large, geriatric rescue dogs. Rosenfelt’s book Dogtripping chronicles the couple’s cross-country retirement move from California to Maine with all those aging dogs in three RVs with the help of volunteers who were fans of Rosenfelt’s mystery novels. It’s a HOOT! You can watch a Facebook Live video of Rosenfelt discussing his Dogtripping book with me here at an event sponsored by The Grey Muzzle Organization, one of my favorite charities that helps senior dogs in need.

TV’s Lassie saved children from wildfire and quicksand. Real-life service dogs save entire families from the isolation and stress of a child’s incurable illness or severe disability.

Through the vivid stories of compromised kids who blossom with highly trained dogs, Greene celebrates the canine gift for understanding us humans—rooted in 10,000 years of interspecies history but ignored by science until the recent past.

This book gripped, moved, and informed me while hitting close to home. Like my own rescue mutt, many service dogs were trained by prisoners who discovered their own best selves by teaching an unwanted animal to love. Humans and dogs need each other, as Greene shows with heartfelt but rigorous reporting. 

This novel contains one of the most beautiful and simultaneously heartbreaking ‘coming out’ storylines I have read in a long time. Dan is a psychologist living with OCD. He knows he’s gay but has never had the courage to come out (let alone sleep with another man). I just loved seeing this character come out of his shell bit by bit and wrestle with all the feelings that come with lust and first love. It was an absolute joy to read (along with the other two major storylines), it was unpredictable, sweet, and genuinely took my breath away.   

I can’t say enough about Through a Dog’s Eyes. Read it to save your puppy from harsh training methods. Read it before you choose a training method to prepare for raising a puppy/dog.

Arnold offers a giant step forward in the humane treatment of dogs as feeling and thinking beings. Jennifer Arnold once thought methods of dominance and negative correction were necessary, but through her Canine Assistance program (a service dog organization), Arnold learned that kindness and encouragement proved the best way to train dogs.

For twenty years, Arnold adopted, raised, and taught dogs for people with special needs. Dogs showed her how to “teach” dogs to make choices, not to simply “train” to follow commands. Her dogs performed amazing feats of thinking and taking lifesaving actions.

This book proves rough beginnings can produce beautiful endings.

I read Marley and Me a few years before losing our first golden retriever, Sunny. I had waited twenty-three years to have a dog of my own. My husband and I had looked at more than a dozen puppies before deciding on our perfect little princess.

The first day, our puppy slept like the sweet princess we knew she was! But on day two, she woke up a tyrant. She was the golden retriever version of Marley—and like Marley, Sunny won our hearts and became a beloved member of our family.

She lay in my lap while I read Marley and Me—a good thing because I had to stop reading and hug her a lot while reading the book!