A Dog Walks into a Nursing Home

Therapy Dogs Rock!!

This title sounds like the beginning of a corny joke. However, the subtitle provides a very good description of the book: “Lessons in the Good Life from an Unlikely Teacher.” Specifically, it is about the experiences of the author and her middle-aged yellow labradoodle named Pransky as they served together as a volunteer human/therapy dog team at a nursing home near their home in Vermont.

Halpern has an educational background in philosophy. Just after earning her doctorate, she spent a period of time teaching ethics to second-year medical school students. So, each chapter of the book is devoted to stories related to either one of Aristotle’s ethical virtues or Saint Thomas Aquinas’ cardinal virtues. Chapters include: restraint, prudence, faith, fortitude, hope, love and charity.

I think the major take-away from the book is that aging may be both physically and emotional difficult, but despite these challenges many seniors lead full and meaningful lives up until the end. Also, it showed the positive effect that dogs can have in the lives of humans. Overall, I thought it was great read!