PUPPY MIRACLES: True, Inspirational Stories of Our Lovable, Furry Friends by Brad Steiger and Sherry Hansen Steiger Adams Media, an F+W Publications Co. • 57 Littlefield Street • Avon, MA 02322 2006, 244 pages, $9.95 • ISBN: 1-59337-535-2 Reviewed by Brent Raynes The well-known coauthors of Pet Miracles, Cat Miracles, Horse Miracles, Animal Miracles, and many other profound and inspirational volumes now bring you another delightful and heart-warming collection of true stories involving our dear canine friends, from incredible heroic, life-saving deeds to supernatural episodes that demonstrate how even death won’t always separate a deceased pet from the owners he/she loved. Or, to just plain comical accounts like Boris, a basset hound whose owner had named him after Boris Karloff of Frankenstein fame, and who had dressed him up one Halloween night as a monster to scare the neighborhood trick or treaters, when the costumed kids instead scared Boris! Moving are the unbelievable and heroic accounts like that of Joe Prohaska whose rottweiler named Lakota and a Labrador named Cheyenne together pulled their owner, who had fallen through the ice of a frozen Michigan lake, to safety. Or, Michael Bosch whose SUV had rolled over five times and landed upside down in a deep ravine and how his newly acquired and barely five month old cocker spaniel Honey, who exited the vehicle through a hole in the windshield, traversed through thick bramble and forest and up the ravine to a house where she scratched on the door of one Robin Allen, leading Ms. Allen back to the accident scene. When rescue crews got there his pulse was weak and he clearly would not have survived if it hadn’t been for Honey. The supernatural stories are truly thought-provoking. For example, the account of Merlin Hess, who when he was a 12-year-old boy was struck by a pickup truck while riding his bicycle. Suddenly transported to “paradise” and in the presence of two “beautiful, glowing angels,” Merlin encounters his beloved puppy Bojangles, who had died a couple years earlier. It seemed that the angels had used the puppy to help calm the frightened young boy. Then too there was Kendra R.’s near death experience where as a ten year old girl she had been critically burned and found herself going down a long and dimly lit tunnel, and then encountering a brilliant light and soon her beloved Pomeranian Akumba, who had died just a few months before. The dog, a small and healthy puppy again (he had died sick and years older), glowed with multicolored rays emanating from his body. He led her through a maze of brightly colored flowers to a cave entrance at the side of a mountain. Inside the cave, young Kendra could see the doctors and nurses working over her body. She knew that she was being shown by Akumba the way back to her life, that it wasn’t yet her time. Also there is the account of Bryce Bond, a noted New York parapsychologist whose writings I remember from years ago, who shared with the Steiger’s his tender account of Pepe, a small French poodle deeply loved by both Bryce and his wife, but who developed cancer when he grew older. They consulted various veterinarians, but the verdict from all of them was the same. He was too far gone. Three years after his death, Bryce was about to drift off to sleep one night when Pepe, as he had previously been accustomed to doing, joined Bryce in bed. For some ten minutes, Bryce could feel the dog, touched it, felt its breath, and in the morning found clumps of hair under his fingernails. Later he had the hair analyzed by a veterinarian and a forensic chemist, and it was indeed poodle hair! Further confirmation that the experience had been quite real! These and many other factual and incredible canine accounts and details will undoubtedly tug at your heart strings and further demonstrate the deeper and more complex qualities and characteristics that make up the world and lives of our furry canine friends. .