Everyone who has visited So Many Precious Books, know what a sucker I am for all living being, cutie and furry, so how was I to resist this book. I took one look at the cover and fell in love with yet another dog, Oogy.

This memoir is about Oogy and the family who adopted him. He wasn’t the first adoptee in his family. Larry Levin and his wife, Jennifer weren’t able to have biological children so they adopted. They quite surprised when they got the call saying that the mother had given birth to twins. They named the boys Dan and Noah.
It was when Dan and Noah were 12 years old that Oogy came into their life. Larry and the boys had gone to the veterinarian with their ill cat and was greeted by Oogy. He inquired about him and found out that Oogy had been near death when he was brought in by the police after a drug raid. It turned out that he had been a “bait” dog. Used to train other dogs how to fight. Half his face was bitten of along with one of his ears. The fight dogs were suppose to kill him but they didn’t quite succeed. Oogy was just a puppy then, only about three months old.
You would have thought that that experience would have affected him for life, become a mean dog himself but he loved people, and it was love at first site for both Oogy and the Levin’s. He slept with the boys every night and watched over them. When the boys graduated high school he was there to see them go off to college.
I was worried when I started reading this book. So many books about pets end the same way but this one didn’t. It was a heart warming tribute to Oogy and the family who still love him. It wasn’t as sentimental as some stories I have read and for that I am thankful. The descriptions of Oogy’s experience as a bait dog were painful to read but necessary. Larry Levin treated his entire family, including Oogy with respect.
If you have any suspicions of animal cruelty where you live, please learn from Oogy and call animal welfare immediately. Also, as Bob Barker says, “have you pets spayed or neutered.”
4/5
Thanks to Anna Balasi of Hachette Book Group for sending me the hardcover edition of this book.
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