3 out of 4 stars
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Sally H. Cronk’s Just a Shelter Dog is an amazingly inspiring read, mainly told from Singer’s point of view. Singer is a hound dog, and the novel traces the story of his rough birth in a shelter as the runt of the litter, to an intuitive and wise service dog to his beloved autistic human named Ollie. Singer is fiercely protective of the human beings important to him, and tries his hardest to bring about positive changes in the lives of his humans by showering them with love and affection.
Cronk narrates most of the story from Singer’s perspective, a somewhat novel concept which I thoroughly enjoyed. She also uses language that is simple and succinct, which actually has the effect of tugging at your heartstrings (in a good way) – I felt myself tearing up a few times reading about Singer’s overwhelming pain when his mother was adopted from the shelter, and the resultant fears of abandonment.
Singer is then adopted by Long-Haired, his name for the female human named Ansley who works at the shelter. He spends many happy times with her, and takes up the role of canine protector whenever Ansley suffers an attack due to the traumas from her past. However, she later gives him up to Ollie, when she realises that Singer and Ollie have a special connection. This is as Singer is the only one able to communicate with Ollie, who is afraid of the real world and unable to voice his fears due to his autism. With much patience and love, Singer succeeds at teaching Ollie to connect with the people around him, drawing him out of his shell.
Also, with Cronk’s choice to have most of the book in Singer’s perspective, the reader is therefore privy to all of his feelings and emotions, which personally led me to sympathise and emphathise with him. Despite not having a dog, I was still able to connect with Singer’s experiences, which allowed me to better understand how a domesticated dog’s life might be, and how much the dog relies on his owner for love and affection.
Another thing I liked is Cronk’s insertion of many nuggets of information into Just a Shelter Dog about autism and service dogs in America, making it an informative yet fascinating read. Also, I very much enjoyed reading about the lives of various characters in the book, as they were multi-dimensional; Cronk had obviously put effort into fleshing out their backstories to make it seem all the more realistic.
However, if I had to list a few flaws in the novel, it would be the sporadic grammatical errors present, which detracted from the overall reading experience. Also, the book did not seem to be well-formatted, as there were no breaks in between paragraphs, making it difficult to be read properly. However, a definite plus is the sub-heading present in every chapter informing the reader who the narrator is.
Nonetheless, I would still recommend this book to dog-lovers, as well as readers who are interested in learning more about service dogs and autism, as Cronk is a retired special education teacher, which makes her a reliable source of information. I would give Just a Shelter Dog 3.5 stars if I could, but am unfortunately forced to round it down to 3 out of 4 stars due to the formatting and grammatical mistakes present. Nonetheless, Singer is definitely not just any shelter dog, but a dog whose touching story will remain with me in the times to come; I hope it will also remain with you, dear reader, if you allow Singer time to tell his story to you.
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Just a Shelter Dog
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