Love is the Best Medicine: What Two Dogs Taught One Veterinarian About Hope, Humility, and Everyday Miracles
By Tanya Turgeon
Love is the Best Medicine: What Two Dogs Taught One Veterinarian About Hope, Humility, and
Everyday Miracles
by Dr. Nick Trout, DVM
Review by Tanya Turgeon
Broadway Books, 2010
304 pages
$23.99
Veterinarian Nick Trout appears to have been bit by the writing bug; not that we're complaining.
His debut book "Tell Me Where It Hurts" quickly became a favorite of dog lovers and even prompted pet expert
and fellow Fetchdogger Julia Szabo to credit Trout for dethroning James Herriot. This March Dr.
Trout's second book, "Love is the Best Medicine" is slated to hit shelves and just so happens to
conveniently serve as the perfect piece to wrap up Book Hound's month of love, love, and more love.
Again Dr. Trout deserves the prize for cutest appropriate cover photo. See adorable Bulldog with retro icepack on his head. In the pages beyond the picture,
Dr. Trout takes love to a whole new level - the kind that Valentine's Day should truly be about.
This love eclipses physical existence because it
is based on the essence of a being. This love is
capable of traveling through time and space to be absorbed and shared by others, even those who
have never met.
How does Trout achieve such a feat? First, by revealing himself as a veterinarian who is
sensitive, compassionate, communicative, and open to learning from his patients. Second, by
artfully interweaving together the stories of two families and the medical challenges facing their
beloved dogs.
One family's Miniature Pinscher Cleo
suffers from an unaccountable amount of broken bones given her young age. The other has
rescued a stray senior English Cocker Spaniel named Helen who is diagnosed with a cancerous tumor near her heart. Cleo's
owner tells Dr. Trout, "We waste so much time imagining, idealizing how we think love should
look and how it should feel. We miss out on all the good stuff, the subtle stuff which is what it's
all about. If it is real love, all we have to do is focus on making the people or animals we love
happy, giving them what they need, and you can guarantee it will come full circle." It is thoughts
like these and the choices the owners make when dealing with emotionally charged crises that
drove Trout back to his typewriter.
Dr. Trout can be wordy at times, but it's well worth the extra syllables for a peak into the mind,
life, and lessons learned by a veterinarian who represents the profession so many of us depend on
to keep our loved ones healthy. This statement in his introduction clearly shows the insight with
which Dr. Trout approaches his craft: "Fundamentally our professional goal is to repair and
sustain mutual love. Most of what follows is my attempt to document the undeniable strength of
this love...to reveal everything you will not find in veterinary textbooks through my encounters
with some extraordinary humans and animals..." And that is exactly what he does.
