EP #13: BOOK: "A Dog Walks Into a Nursing Home: Lessons in the Good Life from an Unlikely Teacher." AUTHOR: SUE HA

Send us Fan MailLisa is joined by Sue Halpern who talks about her book A Dog Walks Into a Nursing Home: Lessons in the Good Life from an Unlikely Teacher.In chapters on restraint, prudence, faith, fortitude, hope, love, and charity, the author makes connections with the virtues as she watches Pransky deliver light and positive vibes — small miracles — to many lonely and isolated residents. She marvels at her dog's resiliency and the ways she brings joy, calm, and confidence to residents and staff. Pransky proves herself to be a wonderful spiritual teacher for both Halpern and the older people she showers with love and attention.A Dog Walks Into a Nursing Home: Lessons in the Good Life from an Unlikely TeacherIn late adolescence, Pransky was bored: she needed a job. and so Sue Halpern decided to give herself and her underoccupied Labradoodle a new leash—er, lease—on life by getting the two of them certified as a therapy-dog team. Pransky proved to be not only a terrific therapist, smart and instinctively compassionate, but an unerring moral compass as well. In the unlikely-sounding arena of a public nursing home, she led her teammate into a series of encounters with the residents that revealed depths of warmth, humor, and insight Halpern hadn’t expected. Little by little, their adventures expanded and illuminated Halpern’s sense of what goodness is and does—how acts of kindness transform the giver as well as the given-to.Funny, moving, and profound, A Dog Walks into a Nursing Home is the story of how one virtuous—that is to say, faithful, charitable, loving, and sometimes prudent—mutt showed great hope, fortitude, and restraint (the occasional begged or stolen treat notwithstanding) as she taught a well-meaning woman the essence and pleasures of the good life.