THE DOG WHO SPOKE WITH GODS

The author of several books on dog behavior offers her first novel: a sharp indictment against the use of dogs in animal research.

Animal behaviorist Viktor Hoffman, who studies the rare feral dog, discovers a pit bull that has been surviving on its own in the forest and sets about tracking the dog’s actions. Injured in the woods, Hoffman is rescued by the dog, which he names Damien. But that doesn’t stop him from later attaching a bulky radio collar to Damien that (unbeknownst to the researcher) severely inhibits the dog’s ability to hunt. Hoffman eventually finds Damien nearly starved, the collar wedged between rocks. Feeling a sense of obligation, he saves the dog’s life, but only for a fate worse than death: Hoffman brings Damien to his university’s animal research lab, albeit with a note attached preventing any terminal studies. Vividly depicting Damien’s lot as a research animal, the author catalogues one horror after another: he's shocked, shot, and left to linger in a small cage for the rest of his life. Enter Elizabeth Fletcher, a pre-med student working part-time in the lab as an animal handler. The daughter of a researcher who himself experiments on dogs, Elizabeth has never had a pet and can’t fathom any special connection between the two species . . . until she meets Damien. The dog’s nobility (Jessup waxes poetic about the breed a bit too often) intrigues her, and soon she is secretly taking him out at dawn for walks and teaching him tricks. Very special tricks: when Elizabeth teaches Damien how to speak, she gets him to actually articulate human words. Later, though, she inadvertently puts him into the hands of evil Dr. Seville, who intends to use Damien’s miraculous skill to build his reputation—at any cost.

Graphic scenes of animal torture make for a sometimes painful read, but the passion here can also make it worth the effort.