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I decided to write about this book today in honor of the approaching holiday–Valentine’s Day. This book is about love in one of the most selfless and special ways we can give love–to animals who have been in puppy mills. **A portion of the sales profits from A Home for Dakota go to shelters and animal rescue groups.

*Picture book for preschoolers through second graders, contemporary fiction
*Puppy mill pup as main character
*Rating: A Home for Dakota will pull at your heartstrings and make you want to hug your pets and your children!

Short, short summary: A Home for Dakota is told from the point of view of puppy number 241, who starts his life in a puppy mill and is rescued. After being held in a shelter, a human named Emma takes him home to help him get adjusted to living with humans. Emma is patient, kind, loving, and knows how to take care of a sick dog who has lost most of his fur from infection. She names him Dakota, and he learns to trust her. When he is on the mend, Emma brings a family in to see Dakota, and he learns to live with a new owner. The book being told from the puppy’s point of view makes it that much more powerful, and in my opinion, endearing to children.

So, what do I do with this book?

1. The last page of the book has special information for parents and teachers to teach your students or children more about how to treat dogs. This information may also help you to answer some questions that come up while reading A Home for Dakota. For example, many children might not understand why Dakota has lost his hair and the illustrations show that he has bumps on his skin. As a service learning project to go with A Home for Dakota, students could bring in their pennies to donate to a local animal shelter; or you could find the animal shelter needs list online or by calling, and students could each donate one item off of the list.

2. This is the perfect book to teach animal safety, especially when finding stray dogs or cats. Children often approach stray animals and scare them, and then the animal attacks. You can also discuss with students the proper way to care for and treat an animal that is in their home. After these discussions, allow students to create posters, sharing information they learned. You can hang these in the hallway at your school or in your kitchen (if you home school) to remind others of these important lessons.

3. Children may want to know why “Sweetie” is drawn without any hair. The text never says that Sweetie has cancer, and so children who are not familiar with this may not understand. Take some time to discuss with children why Sweetie may react the way she does to Dakota at first, why she has no hair, and how Dakota and Sweetie become friends. Give children plenty of time to ask questions and share stories of family members or friends with cancer.

Don’t forget–there’s still time to win your very own copy of Hate List by Jennifer Brown. This is a young adult book, fiction, about a school shooting and how students deal with the aftermath. Make a comment on the post about the book by Feb. 14 at 8:00 p.m. CST.

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One of the 2009 Kind Children's Book Awards went to a special book by Jan Zita Grover, about a special little dog named Dakota. Her name hadn't always been Dakota. For years she was known only as Dog No. 241. Her rescue into a foster home marks a healing transformation that not only gives Dakota a new chance at life, as she slowly learns the joys of joining a true family, especially Sweetie, a girl on her own healing journey.

Children and adults interested in helping rescue these innocent creatures from puppy mills can contact Mission: Humane which gets young people actively involved in animal protection and provides resources for classroom teachers, animal sheltering professionals, and others to guide youth animal protection clubs.

The program provides projects for elementary-school students and teens, resources for forming clubs and taking action, and rewards for activities. Projects are designed to get young people working on the most important issues affecting animals today.

I also got a reminder from life-long friend, Cynthia, who has spent many years rescuing and adopting Golden Retrievers in the Atlanta area, who sent out an e-mail from Adopt A Golden Atlanta with a list of dogs in desperate need of rescue. You can go to the link for pictures of these wonderful dogs. The need never goes away. Broday is pictured below. Click on his picture for more information on this worthwhile cause.

As you probably know, I'm passionate about pet adoption and rescue. Our Molly Girl adopted us straight out of the Miami Animal Shelter fourteen years ago. She's romping around in Heaven now with her "brothers" Sam and Wilbur, so this story is in her memory and honor.

If you know a special organization that rescues/adopts animals, please post a comment with the link. Adoption is the best option!


Mary

Mary Cunningham Books


I'm proud to announce the release of Book Four in the award-winning series, "Cynthia's Attic" will be released by Quake (Echelon Imprint) DEC 2009! Buy the first three books on Amazon

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Rescue angel, Christine, her children and their friends are at it again. They rescued a mother dog, Jenny, and her 7, eight-week-old puppies from a puppy mill that was giving dogs away before they were going to be euthanized - 30 in all. The next day, Christine and company took two cars back to the mill and filled them with adult dogs and puppies in need of TLC and good homes. Some of the dogs, she said, had never felt grass under their feet.

All the dogs were taken to Four Paws Resort, and, as you'll see from the pictures below (provided by Christine), they bathed, brushed and provided much love to these innocent creatures; probably the first kind gestures some of them had ever known.

I got an e-mail from her today saying that, sadly two of the pups died, but they only had 13 dogs left that had not been adopted. They won't rest until all are placed with good families.

That's all from me. I'll let the pictures speak for themselves.

To read the first part of the Rescue Angels story, click here.

If you're considering bring a pet into your home, please consider "adoption as your first option."

Mary

Mary Cunningham Books

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