Love Is the Best Medicine

What Two Dogs Taught One Veterinarian About Hope, Humility, and Everyday Miracles

By: Nicholas Trout

Narrated by: Jonathan Cowley

Length: 8 hrs and 30 mins

Publisher's summary

A book guaranteed to touch anyone who has ever had a beloved pet...

From instant New York Times best seller, Dr. Nick Trout comes another touching and heartfelt story from the front lines of veterinary medicine - the story of two dogs who forever changed the way he thought about life, death, fate, and love.

Helen is an older cocker spaniel found neglected and abandoned in a restaurant parking lot one rainy night. Despite her mangy condition and terrible smell, Ben and Eileen fall in love with the pitiful creature and decide to take her in. But just as Helen is rescued from a sad life on the streets and enveloped in a loving home with all the creature comforts an old dog could ask for, a tumor is discovered and she's given a devastating prognosis. All Ben and Eileen want is for Helen to beat the odds and survive for one more summer so that she can have one chance to swim in the ocean on the family's annual trip to Prince Edward Island. In short, they want a miracle.

Meanwhile, fourteen-month-old miniature pinscher Cleo keeps breaking one leg after another which devastates her poor owner, Sandi. While Cleo is visiting Sandi's daughter, Sonja, in Bermuda, she succumbs to yet another fracture. Distraught that the injury happened on her watch, Sonja makes a plan to fly Cleo to Boston to get the specialist care she needs before Sandi even finds out.

Enter Dr. Trout who presides over what should be a fairly routine surgery. What happens next forever links two families, their dogs and a beloved veterinarian and teaches them all a lesson about grace that resonates to this day.

Love is the Best Medicine immerses you in the true life drama of beloved pets whose lives hang in the balance. It underscores the profound bond we have with the animals in our lives and the incredible responsibility Nick carries as their healer. Certainly Dr. Trout has an impressive array of fancy equipment, training and skills at his disposable, but his most important tool (as he persuasively illustrates here) is a fundamental belief in the power of hope, humility, and grace.

Wry, charming, and intensely affecting, Love is the Best Medicine is a one of a kind story only the winsome Dr. Trout could deliver and is destined to become a favorite for animal lovers.

©2010 Nicholas Trout (P)2010 Random House

Many beautiful stories about what pets could teach us

I could not say enough about how much I was touched by the beautiful stories in this Dr.Trout’s book. The love and pain of owning and loving our pets also can teach us lessons. True love is to love someone including our pets the way they want to be loved, not how we think it’s the right way to love them. How profound it is to realize this from the experience with our pets. I loved all Dr. Trouts’s books. This one is no exception. Beautifully written. Heartwarming. And Memorable.

Love is the Best Medicine

I cannot say enough about this book. I have listened to it 4 or 5 times now and every time, I enjoy it even more. It gives you a unique insight from the vets point of view, and it is good to know that the dogs we love are also truly cared for by our vets.
It is a delightful read, or should I say listen. If you love animals, you must get this one.

Please read this. So meaningful.

This book helped me when I was going through a horrendous grieving process when I lost my late husband and my father.

If you LOVE animals, this is for you

What did you love best about Love Is the Best Medicine?

I'm a huge animal lover, so every story about the characters/animals courage and strength reminded me of the amazing animals I've known.

What did you like about the performance? What did you dislike?

I didn't like the narrator that much, he was terrible but, somehow it didn't work for me.

Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?

yes.

Too wordy...prattles on too long

Oh my goodness, I am still listening to this book and feel as if there is no end! The writer goes on and on and on and on. Every movement, every gesture, every sound, every endless detail is documented causing the reader to be exasperated while waiting to find out what happened to the darn dog! An animal lover and reader of many stories about our furry friends, this comes under the category of a rambling with little to no plot.