Tricia and Josh O'Malley are a loving couple and the loving owners of a Boston terrier named Briggs. Then one fine, sunny day, Briggs is stolen from their deck while Josh is momentarily distracted. Thus begins the most stress-filled weeks of their lives.

This is Tricia's story of their search for their stolen dog, and what she learned about marketing, social media, friendship, and both the kindness and the meanness of strangers. She has to go well outside her comfort zone, talking to people she would never ordinarily meet, go into your unfamiliar and sometimes unwelcoming neighborhoods all over Milwaukee to put up posters, develop a Facebook page for her stolen dog, put her cell phone number out there for everyone to call. There are prank calls, unhelpful calls, vicious calls.

But there are also calls that may be real leads.

Through the entire emotional rollercoaster, Tricia is going to work every day and trying to keep up the essentials of daily life. She's surprised to learn which of her friends think of Briggs as "just a dog" and offer no support at all. She's also surprised by the strangers and relative strangers who come out of the woodwork to provide real assistance in the form of putting up posters, providing backup when she or Josh are going into dicey neighborhoods, and making connections in the media and in different communities.

It's human connections that make the difference in their story.

This is a solid story, well-told, about finding a stolen dog. It's warm, human, and a very good read.

Recommended. ( )

This is the true story of how the author's dog is stolen and how friends, family, and the world of social media reach out to help her and her husband find their precious loved one. It's not a long book, but very touching and shows how this tenacious couple will not give up, and that miracles do happen! ( )

I was hesitant to review this book because Tricia and her husband seem like genuinely nice people and I don't like to insult genuinely nice people. However, when you write a book you invite criticism. The point of a review, after all, is to recommend or warn. I am warning.

This is the sort of story that any animal lover would be drawn to - a beloved dog gets abducted right in front of his home. The problem with this book is the telling of the story. Not much happens in the book so, in order to engage the reader, you need good writing and well-developed characters. This book has neither. The writing is over-the-top. Any fans of M*A*S*H will remember an episode when Radar takes a writing course where he tries to make his writing more interesting. What he ends up with, and the writing found in this book, is unintentionally amusing narrative with too many adjectives and metaphors. An example:

"The late afternoon sun cast a warm glow across the abandoned, concrete jungle, but even the sun's radiance couldn't pierce the cold heart of that neighbourhood."

One other thing - there are several mentions and interactions with psychic-type people. If you do read it, prepare for some eye-rolling.

This is a book that I read only to get to the end to find out what happened. I cannot recommend it. ( )