{"product_id":"a-dog-walks-into-a-nursing-home-isbn-9781594632693","title":"A Dog Walks Into a Nursing Home","description":"\u003cb\u003eA layabout mutt turned therapy dog leads her owner to a new understanding of the good life.\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIn 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.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eFunny, moving, and profound, \u003ci\u003eA Dog Walks into a Nursing Home\u003c\/i\u003e 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.Sue Halpern is the author of five previous books. Her writing has appeared in \u003ci\u003eThe New York Review of Books\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eThe New York Times Magazine\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eTime\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eThe New Yorker\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eParade\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eRolling Stone\u003c\/i\u003e, and \u003ci\u003eGlamour\u003c\/i\u003e, among others. She has been a Rhodes Scholar and a Guggenheim Fellow and is a scholar in residence at Middlebury College. She lives with her husband, the writer Bill McKibben, and Pransky in Ripton, Vermont.Introduction\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003ePransky, my soon-to-be ten-year-old dog, is lying\u003cbr\u003eon the living room couch, her body filling it end to\u003cbr\u003eend, for though she is not a big dog, she is double-\u003cbr\u003ejointed, which means that her hips lay out flat. If I weren’t\u003cbr\u003etyping this I’d be stretched out next to her because I’m\u003cbr\u003etired, too, as I often am on Tuesday afternoons. Every\u003cbr\u003eother day of the week, Pransky is a carefree country dog\u003cbr\u003ewho operates by instinct, roaming the meadow around\u003cbr\u003eour house. But Tuesday mornings we spend time at the\u003cbr\u003ecounty nursing home, going door-to-door dispensing\u003cbr\u003ecanine companionship and good cheer. Working at the\u003cbr\u003enursing home requires us to pay attention—Pransky to\u003cbr\u003eme, to her surroundings, and to the people she is\u003cbr\u003emeeting, and me to her, to our surroundings, and to the people\u003cbr\u003ewe are meeting. After three years you’d think we\u003cbr\u003ewould have gotten tougher or more robust, but that’s\u003cbr\u003enever happened and probably never will.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWhen I first considered training Pransky to be a therapy dog\u003cbr\u003eshe was in her late adolescence. Dog years being\u003cbr\u003ewhat they are, she is now about the same age as most of\u003cbr\u003ethe people in the nursing home. Even so, the words\u003cbr\u003e“work” and “walk” still get her to her feet in a unit of\u003cbr\u003etime that is less than a second. Is she better at her job,\u003cbr\u003emore empathetic, now that she, too, is of a certain age? I\u003cbr\u003edoubt it. I doubt it because I don’t think she could be\u003cbr\u003emore empathetic.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAs foreign as the nursing home environment was to\u003cbr\u003eboth of us when we first started visiting County, it was\u003cbr\u003ea little less so to me, since my first job was at a medical\u003cbr\u003eschool in a teaching hospital where I sometimes\u003cbr\u003ewent on rounds. I was in my late twenties, with a newly\u003cbr\u003eminted doctorate, hired to teach ethics to second-year\u003cbr\u003estudents. This should tell you all you need to know about\u003cbr\u003ehow seriously that place took the ethical part of medical\u003cbr\u003eeducation: at that age I had about as much experience\u003cbr\u003ewith the complicated ethical dilemmas of sick people\u003cbr\u003eand their families as the second-years in my class had\u003cbr\u003etreating sick people and dealing with those ethical dilemmas,\u003cbr\u003ewhich is to say, basically, none. Still, reality\u003cbr\u003ewas not our mandate. We were supposed to consider\u003cbr\u003ewhat might happen “if,” and then think through the best\u003cbr\u003e“then.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe one thing you need to know about modern\u003cbr\u003ephilosophy is that the operative word in the previous\u003cbr\u003esentence is “best.” The first thing we had to do in that class\u003cbr\u003ewas figure out what it meant. Was it what the person in the\u003cbr\u003ebed said she wanted, what the doctor wanted, what the\u003cbr\u003ehospital’s risk manager wanted, what the church\u003cbr\u003e(whatever church it was) wanted, what the husband wanted,\u003cbr\u003ewhat the other doctor wanted, what the wife wanted,\u003cbr\u003ewhat the parents wanted, what the partner wanted, what\u003cbr\u003ethe children wanted? Sorting out what was best was, to\u003cbr\u003esay the least, challenging. For guidance, we read works by\u003cbr\u003eKant and Aristotle and Bentham that were harder to get\u003cbr\u003ethrough than the textbooks on human anatomy and\u003cbr\u003eorganic chemistry, and, for my students, who were itching\u003cbr\u003eto get into the clinic, largely beside the point. While I\u003cbr\u003edidn’t think for a minute that an abstract principle, like\u003cbr\u003eKant’s categorical imperative, say, was actually going to\u003cbr\u003elead to the right decision on whether or not to give a new\u003cbr\u003eheart to a homeless man, it seemed like a reasonable idea,\u003cbr\u003ein a place where right answers were often not as black-\u003cbr\u003eand-white as they might appear, to inject some of these\u003cbr\u003enotions into the future doctors’ heads. If ideas like these\u003cbr\u003ecould become part of their mental landscape, then in the\u003cbr\u003efuture, confronted with that homeless man, they might\u003cbr\u003esee the terrain with greater definition.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHistorically, when people looked for guidance on how\u003cbr\u003eto conduct their lives, they turned to philosophy or religion or both.\u003cbr\u003eThat’s less true now, as formal religious\u003cbr\u003eaffiliations drop away and academic philosophy becomes\u003cbr\u003emore and more arcane. It’s not that people are less inclined\u003cbr\u003eto examine their lives or to seek wisdom, it’s just that they\u003cbr\u003eare more likely to look for it in other places: in support\u003cbr\u003egroups, on radio call-in shows, from life coaches, on the\u003cbr\u003eInternet, in books, or, in my case, inadvertently, with my\u003cbr\u003edog, in a nursing home.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWhen Pransky and I started working at County, I\u003cbr\u003eexpected to learn things—how could I not?—though\u003cbr\u003ewhat those things would be I had no clue. I assumed I’d\u003cbr\u003elearn something about old people, and about the thera-\u003cbr\u003epeutic value of animals in a medical setting, and about\u003cbr\u003emyself in that setting, which was alien and not a little\u003cbr\u003escary. What I found myself learning quickly sorted itself\u003cbr\u003einto a template that anyone with a Catholic education,\u003cbr\u003eespecially—which would not include me—would\u003cbr\u003erecognize as the seven virtues: love, hope, faith, prudence,\u003cbr\u003ejustice, fortitude, restraint.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIt should be said that the Catholics didn’t have a corner\u003cbr\u003eon virtue, in general, or on these seven in particular;\u003cbr\u003ethey just happened to enumerate and, in a sense, popularize\u003cbr\u003ethem, so when we think of virtue, we tend to think in\u003cbr\u003esevens. But well before Catholic theologians codified their\u003cbr\u003elist, Greek philosophers, most notably Plato and Aristotle,\u003cbr\u003eoffered advice as to the traits and behaviors that should\u003cbr\u003ebe cultivated in order to live a good, productive, meaningful\u003cbr\u003elife, a life with and for others. It was to Plato’s original four—\u003cbr\u003ecourage, wisdom, justice, and restraint—that, centuries later,\u003cbr\u003eSaint Augustine added love, hope, and faith—what are commonly\u003cbr\u003ecalled “the theological virtues.” These, he believed, both came from\u003cbr\u003eGod and delivered one to God and, ultimately, to a place in heaven. In\u003cbr\u003eour own time, for most people, love and hope and even\u003cbr\u003efaith, if you think of it as loyalty and consistency, are\u003cbr\u003eunmoored from visions of an afterlife. Still, the virtues\u003cbr\u003eremain as guides not only to good conduct but to our\u003cbr\u003ebetter—and possibly happier, more harmonious, most\u003cbr\u003ehumane—selves.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHappiness, as it happened, was the dominant emotion\u003cbr\u003efor both Pransky and me when we were at the nursing\u003cbr\u003ehome, strange as that sounds, and strange as it was. I\u003cbr\u003edidn’t go there to be happy any more than I did to learn\u003cbr\u003eabout hope or fortitude, or to think about courage and\u003cbr\u003efaith, but that’s what happened. You could say I was lucky,\u003cbr\u003eand, in fact, by landing at County, I was lucky. County\u003cbr\u003ehappens to be blessed with tremendous leadership, a devoted\u003cbr\u003estaff, and a larger community that embraces rather than\u003cbr\u003eisolates it. I wouldn’t presume that it is comparable to any\u003cbr\u003eother nursing home. But I do believe that in settings like\u003cbr\u003enursing homes, as well as hospitals and hospices and any\u003cbr\u003eother place where life is in the balance, we get to essentials,\u003cbr\u003ewhich is what the virtues are.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMore than luck was at work, too. My dog was at work,\u003cbr\u003eand she brought to it a lightness and easiness that seemed\u003cbr\u003eto expand outward and encompass almost everyone she\u003cbr\u003eencountered. We often talk about “getting out of our\u003cbr\u003ecomfort zone,” but rarely about entering someone else’s.\u003cbr\u003ePransky made that possible. With her by my side, and\u003cbr\u003esometimes in the lead, I was able to be a better, more\u003cbr\u003eresponsive, less reticent version of myself. One day a man\u003cbr\u003eI didn’t know was sitting idly by himself in the nursing\u003cbr\u003ehome hall. He was wearing a badly tied hospital johnny\u003cbr\u003ethat exposed part of his back, and nothing else. It was\u003cbr\u003erare for people at County not to be dressed in street\u003cbr\u003eclothes, but it wasn’t his attire that caught my attention.\u003cbr\u003eThe man was jaundiced and almost as yellow as the liquid\u003cbr\u003erunning through the tube that started under his hospital\u003cbr\u003egown and ended in a bag on the side of his wheelchair.\u003cbr\u003eThat, and he had no legs. This was not Joe, another double\u003cbr\u003eamputee who became one of our regulars and will\u003cbr\u003eappear in these pages, but someone I’d never seen before\u003cbr\u003eand never saw again. If I had been alone, I might have\u003cbr\u003enodded in his direction and kept going, because that man\u003cbr\u003erepresented most of the things that scared me about nursing\u003cbr\u003ehomes: debilitating illness, a lack of privacy, bodily\u003cbr\u003efluids. But I was not alone, and my partner veered in his\u003cbr\u003edirection, which meant that I had no choice but to go\u003cbr\u003eover and talk to him. What a nice guy! We talked dogs\u003cbr\u003e(he had two Yorkies at home), sports (he was a Steelers\u003cbr\u003efan), and dogs some more. I was in his comfort zone,\u003cbr\u003eand Pransky’s, and then, ultimately, mine. It was, in the\u003cbr\u003escheme of things, a small thing, but small things add up.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMy mommy would like your doggie,” a youngish\u003cbr\u003ewoman with developmental disabilities said to me\u003cbr\u003ethe first time we met her at County.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“My doggie would like your mommy,” I said. “Where\u003cbr\u003edoes she live?”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“In heaven,” she said.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Oh,” I said. “Pransky has a lot of friends in heaven.”\u003cbr\u003eAnd after what was by then a year at County, it was true.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eA certain amount of death is inevitable in a nursing\u003cbr\u003ehome. This is where the virtues can be helpful. They\u003cbr\u003epoint us at what’s important and valuable in life. They\u003cbr\u003ecan offer perspective and frames of reference, and if a\u003cbr\u003edog is in the frame, all the better.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAs I was working on this book, and friends asked me\u003cbr\u003ewhat it was about, I would say “right living and\u003cbr\u003edogs” or “moral philosophy and dogs” or “old people and\u003cbr\u003edogs.” Eventually I realized that every one of those\u003cbr\u003edescriptions was wrong. I was saying “dogs,” plural,\u003cbr\u003ewhen it was actually about one singular, faithful, charitable,\u003cbr\u003eloving, and sometimes prudent dog. That dog has\u003cbr\u003erisen from her slumber and is standing behind me now,\u003cbr\u003eshowing great hope, restraint, and fortitude as she waits\u003cbr\u003efor me to stop typing and go for a walk.","brand":"Riverhead Books","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46305312145637,"sku":"NP9781594632693","price":16.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1842\/7735\/files\/9781594632693.jpg?v=1767720437","url":"https:\/\/k12savings.com\/products\/a-dog-walks-into-a-nursing-home-isbn-9781594632693","provider":"K12savings","version":"1.0","type":"link"}