As some of you know, I have been working on a novel with a service dog for, like, forever. So when the publisher of Hero Dogs contacted me with an advanced reading copy of Hero Dogs, I was excited.

After participating in the Oklahoma City bombing rescue effort, Wilma Melville was so moved that she devoted her life to developing a crack-shot team of search and rescue dogs. Her life’s work is the subject of the book Hero Dogs.

Before beginning this book, I had no idea how complex was the world of search and rescue dogs. Finding that perfect dog that happily combines all requirements–strength, agility, dedication, drive, scent skills, and emotional connection–was the first, and perhaps, most difficult step. Wilma Melville set herself the daunting task of finding not only that perfect dog but also 168 hero dogs, one for every fatality in Oklahoma City.

The monumental scope of the task surprised me. I thought you’d just grab some smart, nice dogs and train ’em. Wrong.

First, the search and rescue organizations of the time were not up to the task. Who knew search dog organizations were plagued with in-fighting and bad-mouthing? Melville formed her own organization and completely revamped the training and selection of both dogs and handlers. One factoid I found fascinating is that dogs lack natural proprioception. Never heard of it? I hadn’t either. Proprioception is the knowledge of the location of your limbs. (Human rock climbers are good at proprioception, for instance.) The surfaces of disaster sites that dogs must navigate are so precarious–twisted I beams, shifting debris piles, falling objects–that the dogs had to acquire that non-innate skill so that they could know where each limb was at all times.

What I mostly loved about this story is Melville’s interest in rejected dogs. Her hero dogs were misfits, rejected even by their shelters, often hours away from being killed. What a happy accident that the very dogs unsuited for the structured existence of family life were perfect for rescue work. And even dogs who failed Melville’s search and rescue certification process found a purpose. I especially got a kick out of Zorro who stopped to smell the roses. Literally. Not a workable trait when minutes count in the search for life, but even Zorro found a home. He works in a botanical research facility where he detects threatened flora and fauna.

The message I took from this book, from the examples of rejected dogs, is that we all have a purpose. We just have to find it. Melville and her dogs certainly found theirs.

I recommend Hero Dogs to dog lovers, to people interested in the complex behind-the-scenes world of rescue dogs and handlers. Those who love reading novels by Robert Crais (dog: Maggie), Barbara Nickless (dog: Clyde), and Margaret Mizushima (dog: Robo) will appreciate the fictional worlds of search and rescue dogs even more after reading Hero Dogs. I know I do.

I received a copy of Hero Dogs from the publisher via Netgalley.