Saving Sadie: How a Dog That No One Wanted Inspired the World
By: Joal Derse Dauer, Elizabeth Ridley / Narrated By: Ann Richardson
Length: 6 hrs and 35 mins
Gosh, how I do haaaate it when I’m disappointed in an Animals Pick…
It’s sooo good that I’ve been addicted to audiobooks for SEVeral years. With that, and my extreeeeme fondness for the good and wonderful creatures who live on this planet with us, I’ve been able to accumulate at least a gazillion (and six) audiobooks that are about animals, or that have an animal featured prominently in them.
I thought Saving Sadie would be the former: About Sadie and her life, but ‘twould turn out? It’s the latter, but baaaaarely. Sadie comes off sounding like author Joal Derse Dauer’s favorite Gucci bag, a loving bundle of floooof, but basically an accessory to how Dauer fills her time.
It’s rather misleading when the title intimates that Sadie has inspired the world, but wait! All this is making it sound as tho’ I haaaated the book when actually it was more that I was so verrrrry disappointed with it.
What we have: Dauer is at an animal shelter dropping off a donation of blankets when she spots a horribly depressed dog, alone, miserably flopped in a kennel. She’s taken by the sadness, the misery in the dog’s eyes, and she learns her story.
After gunshots were heard way in the middle o’ nowhere, good samaritans rushed to an area to find this dog, a bullet in her head, a bullet in her back. It turns out her owners didn’t want her around any longer after the latest batch of puppies, and they shot her and left her to die alone. Okay, so off to a strong start, right? As in, get ready for the hanky to come out to wipe the tears away, right?
Wellll, not reeeeally…
Cuz then we’re off to how Dauer, who will NOT adopt her as she already has three fuzzies at home and knows her limits, tries to find solutions to Sadie’s physical disabilities. The dog is paralyzed, incontinent, and is just so godawfully depressed. And there’s just something about a sweet and loving dog having to live out its life in a shelter that depresses Dauer as well.
Off to the experts: She’ll never walk. The kindest thing would be to euthanize her. Nope? Okay, so off to a holistic vet who comes up with aaaallll sorts of therapies to strengthen Sadie and perhaps make it possible for her to walk after one of her back legs is amputated.
Dauer is comPLETEly onboard, and soon she loses her heart to this brave and loving little girl.
Okay, I’m waaaay with her cuz I know that I’ve, in the past, tried to wangle the impossible outta life on behalf of a lovely little fuzz bucket. So I was cheering for all I was worth, esPECially since one of the vets, The Second Opinion, is from Dauer’s daughter who not only counsels euthanasia, but is totally pushing it too, foisting it on her mom with constant phone calls about how it can be done today and such-all. (By the way? The daughters must take after their father cuz neither of them wants to have anything to do with Sadie and refuse to bring the kids over to Grandma’s because Sadie is eventually gonna die, and everyone KNOWS it’s NEVER worthwhile to love something that’s going to die. Lessons on loving and letting go? About how love is ALWAYS worth it? Oh heck no; not to these two women, dastardly wenches… but I digress…)
But then everything just sliiiiiiides into the mucky middle of the story, and all we hear is of the MANY therapies and just how quietly Sadie submits. Yeh yeh yeh, Dauer’s love grows and grows… along with her state of denial. Because most of the book is how to ignore rePEATed diagnoses that say Sadie will never walk.
And then we get to annoying stuff. I mean, reeeeeally annoying stuff, like Dauer LYING her face off to get Sadie branded as a Comfort Animal so she can fly in the cabin with her. I mean, Comfort Animals and Therapy Animals are having a tough time of it now what with all the freaking (LIARS!), excuse me, less-than-forthright people who are gaming the system. I’ve listened to soooo many audiobooks where the disabled individual or the wounded warrior is having to pull out document after document to keep their companion by their side, and here’s this git of a woman flunking the assessment then returning so that she might LIE her way into certification.
-BUT-
It’s all so she can go to parties in Hollywood where Sadie’s been chosen to be a spokesdog for a product. Indeed, most of the book turns out to be, not how she’s inspired the world, but by how much, how very MUCH, Dauer is struggling to get her story out on social media so that her therapies can be funded. Now, I do NOT ding anyone for going above and beyond, in using vast resources for whatEVER, or whomever. But really? You’re going to make the entire book about Sadie actually be about funding her therapy? About how many Hits her site is getting, about the God Bless Yous in the Comments Section? Lovely that she’s on a radio show; sad that THAT is all the book is about.
Now onto Ann Richardson who neither added nor detracted from the story, such as it was. My only sliiiiight grunt to make is that her voice is jaunty and juvenile, so I was sooo taken aback to hear Dauer has a daughter in her 30s (And who constantly wants to kill Sadie… just saying…). I was thinking, from the start, that this was a Twenty-Something woman, but nope. Still, Richardson wasn’t reprehensible, and she was quite enthusiastic, but I s’pose there’s only so much one can do when blabbing ENDlessly about what-all therapies are today, and how godawfully many supplements need to be crammed down Sadie’s throat at this meal.
Verrrrry disappointing Listen!
-BUT (once again)- At least I’ve been an audiobook addict for sooooo many years now that I can say, with the veriest of hopes within my heart, that maaaybe next week’s Animals Pick will be better.
I shall start scrolling my Library NOW…!
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