The Darkest Evening of the Year

It’s a new book by Dean Koontz – wait, don’t check out now, this isn’t another one of my book reviews…

Dean seems to have taken a creative route on educating his readers about puppy mills and how cruelly animals are treated. Some dogs are put in small cages at the age of 6 months and then bred immediately. They aren’t taken care of, but instead treated like machines that just crank out puppies which are then sold to pet stores and sometimes sold in newspapers as “Farm-bred”.

In an interesting story about a young girl who rescues Golden Retrievers Dean continues to detail how cruelly some animals are treated. One animal had toe nails that had grown so long that they curled under the dogs feet and into the soles causing unbearable pain. Even after she was rescued and treated she had trouble walking due to atrophied muscles. In time she recovered but was still hesitant to play.

I thought the timing of this book was interesting since Ellen Degeneres recently had her dog taken away from her by the adoption agency that she had gotten it from. Apparently she had violated some of the rules the agency had set forth and they had made an example out of her. After reading some of what Dean has written, and which I am sure is more fact than fiction, I can see why these people who go through great lengths to rescue dogs can become so vigilant about the dogs being treated well.

Anyway, Dean is a Golden Retriever lover and he has written many books with these dogs in them. It’s got me to thinking… maybe I should get a Golden? If they really are such amazing wonderful dogs then I should get one. What about you, what kind of dog do you want?