With the help of nine equally dog-crazy volunteers and “three GPSs to make it foolproof,” they loaded up three RVs with 25 dogs and set out for the East Coast. It came instead from the move Rosenfelt and Myers decided to make from California to Maine, the story of which the author interweaves into the narrative of his experiences as a canine foster parent. Their most difficult challenge as a “family” didn’t come from illness or death, however. Yet amazingly, each was able to find acceptance in the loud, hairy pack they formed. Each of the 25 they took in had a unique personality.

But Rosenfelt focuses primarily on the dogs he and Myers adopted. Over the years, they would rescue thousands of animals that otherwise would have been euthanized. As the pair entered into full-blown “dog lunacy,” the number of dogs they rescued reached, at its height, 42. After Tara died, the two decided to honor her memory by working as dog-shelter volunteers and then by starting their own rescue group. As Rosenfelt’s relationship with Myers developed, so did his interest in dogs.

Myers was already an avid dog lover who lived with a golden retriever named Tara. When Rosenfelt ( Leader of the Pack, 2012, etc.) met Debbie Myers, the woman who became his second wife, he never imagined that they would go on to become partners in both life and dog rescuing. A mystery novelist’s account of how he became a dog rescuer and moved cross-country with his “very unusual, very large, very hairy family” of eccentric canines.

Dogtripping