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It’s a dog’s world in ‘Lessons from Tara’

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It’s a dog’s world in ‘Lessons from Tara’

Any dog owner will admit to learning a thing or two from a pet, but author David Rosenfelt has learned more than most.

The result is his latest nonfiction effort, Lessons from Tara: Life Advice from the World’s Most Brilliant Dog.

Tara is a golden retriever that Rosenfelt credits for his marriage to his wife, Debbie, and ultimately changing his life.

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But Tara was only the beginning for Rosenfelt: There was also Irish and Bernie, Sky and Otis, Mamie and Bumper, Mugsy and Sarah, and countless others.

In recognition of Tara’s impact on their lives, the Rosenfelts created the Tara Foundation. Through the organization, they have rescued almost 4,000 dogs, mostly seniors, from some of the nation’s worst dog shelters.

Rosenfelt makes no attempt to hide his and his wife’s craziness for dogs. In fact, the author’s first nonfiction effort, Dogtripping: 25 Rescues, 11 Volunteers, and 3 RVs on Our Canine Cross-Country Adventure, chronicles the couple’s over-the-top execution of moving from California to Maine, with 25 dogs in tow. And clearly there’s an audience for their adventures. NPR selected Dogtripping as one of its best books of 2013.

Like Dogtripping, Lessons from Tara is full of laugh-out-loud stories. For example, Rosenfelt explains how four to six dogs welcome themselves into he and Debbie’s California king bed each night. Among the guests are a mastiff, a lab mix, and two Great Pyrenees, and Bernie the Bernese mountain dog who barks at 4 a.m. each day until Rosenfelt lifts all 120 pounds of his frame into the bed.

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Irish provides one of the book’s more entertaining moments. During his first thunderstorm at the Rosenfelts’ home, the golden retriever was so frightened that he crashed through the screen of an open window and through the door of a neighbor’s house.

With each maddening situation, the reader can feel Rosenfelt’s frustration and ultimate acceptance — all to ensure that at least one more dog will have a better life.

But rescuing dogs isn’t all funny anecdotes; there are plenty of heart-wrenching moments as well.

Rosenfelt makes a promise to each dog rescued through the Tara Foundation: that he or she will never see the inside of a shelter again. He also addresses the emotional turmoil that goes into deciding which dogs to rescue and determining when a dog no longer has a quality life.

There’s no doubt Rosenfelt’s life would be less complicated without the Tara Foundation, but he neatly sums up the reason behind it in the introduction. “There would be less screaming in our house, less vacuuming, less mopping, more sleeping, more relaxing, and much less love.”

Most of Rosenfelt’s dozen appearances to promote Lessons from Tara and Who Let the Dog Out? and his latest Andy Carpenter novel, benefit animal shelters in nine states. 

As a rescuer, Rosenfelt has seen the best and worst attributes of human behavior. But in Lessons from Tara, the author avoids being preachy and instead invites the reader to keep his priorities in order and embrace the simple things in life.

First Published August 30, 2015, 4:00 a.m.

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