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

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 experts are saying about The Possibility Dogs:
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 

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 

For everyone who is interested in the human animal bond, this book is essential reading. Learn how service dogs can provide emotional support for people who are in great need. -- Temple Grandin, author of Animals Make us Human and Animals in Translation 

NEW YORK TIMES Bestseller Susannah Charleson works as a search specialist with her K9 partner, a Golden Retriever named Puzzle, for a U.S. search-and-rescue team and research group focusing on the special-needs missing. Charleson is also the Executive Director of Possibility Dogs, Inc., a 501c3 nonprofit dedicated to rescuing and training homeless dogs for service and therapy work. 

Charleson's first book, SCENT OF THE MISSING: LOVE AND PARTNERSHIP WITH A SEARCH AND RESCUE DOG (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2010), was optioned for television in 2010. Her second book, THE POSSIBILITY DOGS: WHAT A HANDFUL OF "UNADOPTABLES" TAUGHT ME ABOUT SERVICE, HOPE, AND HEALING(Houghton Mifflin Harcourt) releases in June 2013. 

If she's not "beside a dog, somewhere," Charleson -- a commercial pilot and flight instructor -- hopes she's exploring, either airborne in her Piper Archer or at the keyboard on a new book.