Sit, Stay, Heal: What Dogs Can Teach Us About Living Well

by Renee Alsarraf

Overview

“Written with grace and emotional honesty, Sit, Stay, Heal will live with you long after the last page.”— John Grogan, bestselling author of Marley & Me

For more than two decades, esteemed veterinary oncologist Dr. Renee Alsarraf treated cancer in her beloved canine patients. Then, at age fifty-one, she was diagnosed with cancer herself.

Sit, Stay, Heal: What Dogs Can Teach Us About Living Well is Dr. Renee’s unforgettable testament to the extraordinary healing nature of dogs. Every day in her veterinary practice, she bears witness to the undeniable bond between pets and their people. However, while we are busy teaching them to “sit” and “stay,” they have their own, more profound, lessons to impart. In Sit, Stay, Heal, we meet Cosmo, the golden retriever who arrives at Renee’s office just before his fourteenth family vacation to the beach; Daisy, the cocker spaniel, an emotional support dog for a special needs child; and Franny, the bloodhound, a police dog who wasn’t ready to retire from the force. Then there’s Dr. Renee’s own dog Newtie, who falls ill when she needs him most.

Our dogs are wise in ways humans are not. For Dr. Renee, it was her patients—those furry, four-legged, slobbering animals—who seemed to uniquely understand her difficult journey and who showed her the true power of positivity and unconditional love. Full of life lessons and healing metaphors, perfect dogs and their imperfect humans, Sit, Stay, Heal is a captivating, heartwarming story for dog lovers far and wide.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780063215221
Publisher:	HarperCollins
Publication date:	10/18/2022
Pages:	256
Sales rank:	411,982
Product dimensions:	6.20(w) x 9.10(h) x 1.10(d)

About the Author

DR. RENEE ALSARRAF has created four different veterinary oncology practices and led three veterinary radiation facilities. She has performed numerous veterinary clinical trials, co-authored peer-reviewed journal articles, and has lectured both locally and on the national level. She lives in Montclair, New Jersey, and is married to a veterinary ophthalmologist. They have one son, whom she cherishes, as well as Dusty, her beloved, bossy, six-year-old female boxer.

Table of Contents

Introduction 1

1 Daisy 7

2 Bentley 31

3 Cosmo 53

4 Dickens, Drummer, and Newton 69

5 Newton, Part Two 95

6 Bogart 111

7 Sasha 139

8 Franny and Lucky 163

9 Newton, Part Three 199

10 Dusty and Callie 219

Conclusion 237

Author's Note 239

Acknowledgments 241

Editorial Reviews

In this wise, often moving narrative, Alsarraf offers useful insight into the meaning of health, wellness, and good living through uplifting stories of animal and human healing. A warmly candid book for dog lovers and anyone affected by cancer.” — Kirkus Reviews

“When the cancer doctor becomes a cancer patient, illumination is sure to follow. And so it is with Renee Alsarraf’s heartfelt memoir Sit, Stay, Heal. A veterinary oncologist, Alsarraf finds in her canine patients the courage, optimism, and acceptance she needs to wage her own battle to survive. Written with grace and emotional honesty, Sit, Stay, Heal will live with you long after the last page.” — John Grogan, bestselling author of Marley & Me: Life and Love with the World’s Worst Dog

“An emotional journey for both Dr. Alsarraf and her four-legged patients. If you love dogs, as I do, this book will make you love them even more.”

— Delia Ephron, New York Times bestselling author of Left on Tenth: A Second Chance at Life

“’Each dog is different,’ Dr Renee Alsarraf tells her son in SIT, STAY, HEAL, her wise, big-hearted memoir, ‘and each teaches us something different.’ Lucky for us, Dr Alsarraf, a veterinary oncologist, shares what she learns from her furry, four-legged patients when she finds out that she too has cancer. Candid, graceful, and infused with warmth, SIT, STAY, HEAL is a moving portrait of an esteemed veterinarian and the unforgettable dogs who helped her heal." — Jillian Medoff, author of When We Were Bright and Beautiful

From the Publisher

When the cancer doctor becomes a cancer patient, illumination is sure to follow. And so it is with Renee Alsarraf’s heartfelt memoir Sit, Stay, Heal. A veterinary oncologist, Alsarraf finds in her canine patients the courage, optimism, and acceptance she needs to wage her own battle to survive. Written with grace and emotional honesty, Sit, Stay, Heal will live with you long after the last page.

John Grogan

2022-08-03
A veterinary oncologist explores how caring for cancer-stricken animals helped illuminate her own private war with metastatic cancer.

“People always ask me, ‘How can you do what you do?’ They think cancer in animals is too sad to be a full-time job,” writes Alsarraf. “They are surprised to hear me say I experience much more happiness than sadness….I try to give pet parents realistic hope, another summer or perhaps a few years of good quality time. It is an emotionally draining profession, yet it fills me right back up.” One of the author’s stories involves Daisy, a happy-go-lucky, treat-seeking cocker spaniel with lymphoma. Daisy, who went on to live into old age, reiterated the lesson that pets diagnosed with life-threatening disease could still live happily and that humans were the ones who immersed themselves in self-defeating worry about the what ifs they could not control. As she observed Daisy’s devoted family, which also includes an adopted special needs daughter who is unable to speak or eat by mouth, Alsarraf also realized that concerns like losing her hair from chemotherapy were trivial by comparison. Among the more poignant accounts is that of the author’s own dog, Newton, a “mentally challenged” boxer who “provides unconditional love for me and my family.” Regardless of the toll that cancer treatments took on Alsarraf’s body, Newton loved her without judgment. The unexpected—and devastating—discovery that Newton had lymphoma unexpectedly brought her into even closer contact with the mortality she had been fighting against. Rather than impose her desire to beat cancer on Newton’s situation, the author opted to make her dog’s remaining days comfortable rather than increase his time through treatments that might bring him even greater pain. In this wise, often moving narrative, Alsarraf offers useful insight into the meaning of health, wellness, and good living through uplifting stories of animal and human healing.

A warmly candid book for dog lovers and anyone affected by cancer.

Kirkus Reviews