Service dogs that help veterans with PTSD inspire book, 'A Dog Like Daisy'

A passing reference to service dogs led to six months of research for author Kristin O’Donnell Tubb, who then needed only five months to write her most recent middle grade (aimed roughly at ages 8-12) novel, “A Dog Like Daisy.”

In the book, Daisy is an adopted pit bull that has only 10 weeks to prove her usefulness, but she must overcome her own past in order to protect Colonel Victor from his post-traumatic stress disorder. 

The book was released on June 13. Tubb is hosting a unique book signing event on June 22 involving Parnassus on Wheels, in which “Peggy” — as the mobile bookstore is affectionately known — will travel out to Tubb’s own neighborhood in Arrington for an on-site event at the clubhouse.

“It goes to show independent bookstores, man, they have their authors’ backs,” said Tubb, who is the author of four previous books.

Tubb spent hours on the phone with Katie Young, who trains veteran service dogs for Southeastern Guide Dogs.

Young helped Tubb understand how the dogs are selected, trained and ultimately introduced into a family, which is the storyline Tubb explores in “A Dog Like Daisy.”

What did you do to see the world through the point of view of a dog?

I tried my hardest. That’s for sure. Anybody who is a pet lover or a dog lover, we all do goofy voices for our pets and we all kind of narrate their thoughts and we pretend to talk like them when we want to go outside. And they’re so full of personality. I thought it was actually a very easy thing to do to put myself in the paws of a dog.

You had fun with it.

It was seriously one of the most fun narrators I’ve ever written. Part of my research uncovered that dog experts and trainers think dogs process the world like somebody with synesthesia. You experience multiple senses at once. For instance, somebody with synesthesia might see colors when they hear music. It’s kind of fascinating. Or when they taste something sometimes they’ll hear music notes. Dog experts think that’s how dogs process the world. They can taste things we can’t. They can smell things we can’t. They can smell fear, so that’s what they think makes dogs so spectacular at being service animals. They have an ability to detect things like when blood sugar plummets. Or when an epileptic attack is coming on.

I’ve never heard that before.

It makes sense to me that (a dog) would be able to, I don’t know, see color when they hear a sound, so that’s kind of how the book is written. She can see colors. She can taste emotions. It was a really fun way to write a book.

That’s a great juxtaposition with the heavy topics in the book — a dog trying to overcome its past and a veteran dealing with PTSD.

That’s one of the things I’ve been happy about that reviewers have noticed, it feels like a good entry point into heavier topics by telling it from the dog’s point of view. It feels a little softer and easier to process. … Honestly that wasn’t a conscious choice by any means. I just kind of grew fascinated by service dogs and all they’re capable of.

Where did the story come from? Did you want to tell the story of a veteran or the dog and then built the rest of the story from there?

It all kind of started when my neighbor down the street got a puppy. She brought the puppy up to play with our dogs, just to socialize them, and she said in passing the guy who breeds these dogs also breeds dogs that help veterans. It was really just a remark in passing, but I went, "Huh. I don’t know that I read anything about service dogs specifically helping veterans in the children’s market."

In researching, there’s quite a bit about service dogs, especially nonfiction for kids, but the more I started researching it, I couldn’t find much that was set in a military family at all — even beyond service dogs. And that’s a huge market, so many kids are in a military family and it occurred to me they may not be seeing themselves in stories.

If you go

What: Open house author event with Kristin O’Donnell Tubb.
When: 4-7 p.m. June 22 
Where: Parnassus on Wheels at 4980 Meadowbrook Blvd. in Arrington
Admission: Free
Details:www.kristintubb.com