Trust Your Dog

"Trust Your Dog" is a collection of five short stories about a twelve year old boy, Shane O'Hara, and his adventures with the family search and rescue dogs. It demonstrates the self-reliance needed to grow up in a household with the motto "so that others may live". In "Alone" he is trapped at home, alone, while his parents are on a search to rescue two girls lost in the storm. Cutoff and without electricity, can he manage to keep the family pets, horses, and home safe? In the second story "Base Camp" his mom is pressed into an emergency search for a heart attack victim. There isn't time to get an adult to help and save the subject of the search. Shane has to step up and handle the adult responsibilities of managing search resources and organizing the rescue effort. Can he organize untrained and ill equipped strangers to make the search a success? The third story is "New Partner". Mom's current partner, Taz, is getting old and she needs to start using her younger dog, Clara. But Mom isn't ready. Can Shane help mom learn to trust her dog? In the fourth story "Handler Down" Shane is pushed to his limits. While on at a training exercise his mom is shot and Shane has to use Clara to find her before it is too late. Can he get there in time and will he know what to do if he does? In the last story, "Fitness Turns into a Find" Shane and his mom are out running with the dogs when a local woman disappears. Shane may not be old enough to be a handler but Mom is sure he can do it. Can Shane handle Clara on a real search or will he make a mistake that costs an innocent woman her life?

The author, Sherri Gallagher, has been training and handling search and rescue canines since the late 1990's she brings the authenticity of her experiences to life on the pages of these stories and let's the reader know what it is like to grow up in a household where the motto is "so that others may live".