Saving Gracie: How One Dog Escaped the Shadowy World of American Puppy Mills - Hardcover

by Carol Bradley (Author)

A compelling true story of one dog's rescue from a Pennsylvania puppy mill

This touching narrative uses the poignant makeover of Gracie, a sickly Cavalier King Charles Spaniel, to tell the story of America's hidden puppy mills-commercial kennels that breed dogs in horrific living conditions and churn out often-diseased and emotionally damaged puppies for sale.

Saving Gracie chronicles how one little dog is transformed from a bedraggled animal worn out from bearing puppies into a loving, healthy member of her new family; and how her owner, Linda Jackson, is changed from a person who barely tolerated dogs to a woman passionately determined not only to save Gracie's life, but also to get the word out about the millions of American puppy mill dogs who need our help.

• A touching story of survival and redemption
• Written by award-winning journalist Carol Bradley
• Newsworthy issues call animal lovers to action

Join journalist Carol Bradley as she draws back the curtain on the world of illegal puppy production in Saving Gracie.

Front Jacket

A compelling true story of one dog's rescue from a Pennsylvania puppy mill

Gracie's life started much like any other puppy's would: she slumbered with her littermates ninety percent of the day and nursed the other ten percent. But she never had the chance to go exploring. Instead, the black-and-white puppy was crammed in a crate with the rest of her litter. She was born in a puppy mill--a large-scale and shoddily run commercial kennel. There was no room to run and play; there was barely enough room to stand.

In the United States alone, an estimated 10,000 cramped kennels produce as many as 4 million dogs a year--innocent, often diseased, and emotionally damaged animals who are then sold to unsuspecting families as "purebred" puppies. Worse, some--like Gracie--are kept behind and turned into breeding stock, doomed to a life of confinement with nothing to look forward to but monotony and loneliness. But not every puppy mill dog has a sad ending, as you'll learn in this heartwarming book.

"Saving Gracie" uses the poignant transformation of a scruffy Cavalier King Charles Spaniel, who was rescued from her sentence as a breeding dog, to tell the story of America's hidden puppy mills. Award-winning journalist Carol Bradley chronicles Gracie's makeover from a bedraggled animal worn out from bearing puppies into a loving, healthy member of her new family and follows her owner, Linda, as she becomes passionately determined to save Gracie's life and spread the word about the millions of other puppy mill dogs who need our help. "Saving Gracie" will open your eyes, warm your heart, and call you to action.

Back Jacket

Praise for "Saving Gracie"

""Saving Gracie" is heart-rending but also wonderfully stirring and empowering. The operators of puppy mills are arrogant, greedy, and cruel, but the people committed to putting them out of business make you want to cheer--and they restore your faith in humanity. Carol Bradley does a great service to dogs by telling this story."
--Dean Koontz, "New York Times" bestselling author

"Carol Bradley seizes a national moment in "Saving Gracie." With deft investigative skill and a loving heart, she tells the story of Gracie, and her sojourn from a puppy mill. If we are judged as human beings by the way we treat our animals, this is an eye-opening account, direct and informative, one you will not be able to put down."
--Adriana Trigiani, bestselling author of "Very Valentine and Big Stone Gap"

""Saving Gracie" is one of those rare books that will at once disturb, inspire, and move you to action. Read this outstanding book about the enduring strength of the human-animal bond and share it widely. It is that important."
--Marc Bekoff, author of "The Emotional Lives of Animals, Wild Justice, and The Animal Manifesto"

"In this book about the best and the worst of human behavior, we see that the best in both humans and canines prevails. Bradley's cast of angels will fill your heart with joy and gratitude that such souls exist. This book is essential reading for anyone who loves dogs and thinks justice matters."
--Susan Richards, author of the "New York Times" bestseller "Chosen by a Horse"

""Saving Gracie" is a story told with verve, with compassion, with style, and with marvelous intelligence. Any dog lover will be happy to add this to the growing list of wonderful books about dogs."
--Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson, bestselling author of "Dogs Never Lie About Love" and "The Face on Your Plate"

Author Biography

Carol Bradley is a former newspaper reporter who studied Animal Law as a 2004 Nieman Fellow at Harvard. She spent twenty-six years covering the U.S. Congress and state legislatures in Tennessee and New York and writing features and investigative stories in Montana. This is her first book.
www.carolbradley.com