Book Review: The Dog Who Spoke With Gods by Diane Jessup

I first bought this book at an animal rights conference in 2000. AR2000 to be exact. I think the author was even there giving a talk but I don't remember. Anyway, I was intrigued by the title and then I read the blurb on the inside cover and it said something about a dog who tried to actually speak out loud and could say a few words. That's all I needed to read. I bought it and then didn't read it until this year.

I don't know why I waited so long to read it. I did a lot in those eight years though, a lot of animal rescue work. Since then I have swayed back and forth in my stance on animal rights. I have become disenchanted with PETA and HSUS. But I digress.

One thing I have always loved more than anything is a good book about dogs. A book written from the dog's point of view would be even better but those are hard to come by as are any books written from an animal's point of view. But they exist and this is one of them.

Only small parts of the book are actually written from the dog's point of view and those parts interweave with other characters' point of view to form a tapestry of experience of each. Diane Jessup weaves a vivid, gripping tale about a feral pit bull dog whose life is saved by a field scientist studying feral dogs. Of course the reason his life needed saving was because of the interference the scientist had on the dog's life.

Thinking he was doing the dog a favor, he brings him back to his school and puts him in a program to become a laboratory dog. Most dogs at the school end up part of horrific experiments. A lot of dogs, umpteen numbers of them, end up in the medical school where their lives end on an operating table to train young doctors. Some uses of the dogs may seem necessary, many are not. The book carefully and impartially presents this to the readers for them to decide.

The main characters are a young medical student, a daughter of two brilliant heart surgeons who is sure to follow in their footsteps, and the pit bull dog himself, Damien. Although the character of the girl, Elizabeth, is fairly flat (this is Diane Jessup's first novel), I welcomed it because I was not too interested in human character development but rather more interested in canine character development and there the book is rich and fertile. I practically ripped the pages out of the book, it was such a page turner for this reason and also because once the dog's plight is set, you just have to know how it ends!

My life seemed to go on hold while I greedily soaked up every word in this book. I learned some things about animal rights along the way that I didn't know which I should have known being an animal advocate. And I learned an awful lot about the very noble breed of dog known as the pit bull. I have loved pit bulls for a good while now because I've met some very sweet ones who were the silliest, sweetest, goofiest love bugs in the world. But the pit bull in this story, Damien, is not a goofball and not silly at all.

We are given the impression that he is an Old World style pit bull and one of not too shabby breeding. He is a very serious dog but he knows how to let loose and play. The pages with descriptions of play between Elizabeth and Damien make you feel like you're right there with them playing and loving every minute of it. These parts of the book will make you want to run right out and throw the ball as long as you can with your own pooch.

I can't stand book reviews that tell you all about the story so you don't even have to read the book. So I'm not going to do that. I'm going to tell you that this book is riveting, it is a page-turner deluxe and you will never, never guess how it ends. And to me that is a wonderful thing because I can't fiction that is like a broken record, same old story, different names for the characters. I like to not know what is going to happen. I'm one of those people who went to see The Sixth Sense and knew what the twist was just from the ads (wasn't it obvious?)

But I never for a million years would have guessed how this story would have ended. Although in retrospect, I do see the foundations, how Diane Jessup set the reader up for it, was even a little merciful in doing that. But I can tell you that it does have a happy ending. And it had too or I would never have written this review. I would have had to burn the book after ripping it to shreds. But none of that was necessary.

So get the book! When you buy from the link below, Bright Eyes Sanctuary will get a little commission too. Help our sanctuary! Read!