Tortie Shorties Book Reviews

Welcome to this week's Tortie Shorties book reviews! 

We hope you enjoy our choices.

The Pet Professional's Guide to Pet Loss: How to Prevent Burnout, Support Clients, and Manage the Business of Grief by Wendy Van de Poll

From the publisher: As a pet care professional how many times have you had a client that just received the news their pet is terminally ill, has died tragically, or is dealing with pet loss?

And how many times have you had to deliver the news yourself? You are not sure what to say, but you want to be compassionate and helpful. You are literally either lost for words, feel like you said the wrong thing, or would like to be more effective when delivering the news.

It is critical to know how to help your clients when they are faced with pet loss death and grief. With the increasing growth in the pet care industry veterinarian medicine is changing--as are all pet care professions. There will be more demands on you and your business. This will make it essential for you to make it a daily practice to take care of yourself to deal with work related health issues. Compassion fatigue and burnout are real, and they both have a way of sneaking up on you.

Once you buy and read this comprehensive guide for all pet care professionals you will know exactly what to do to prevent burnout, support clients, and manage the business of grief.

It is your resource to gain a basic knowledge of—grief and loss, self-care, how to support your clients within your scope of practice, and the business of grief.

Tortie Shorties Review: While this book is targeted to pet professionals it has information that all of us can take to heart and use, especially when it comes to comforting someone who has lost or is in the process of saying goodbye to a cherished pet. No one can claim to understand the depth of another person's grief because we all grieve differently making it incredibly difficult to know the right thing to say. I'll never forget the night I lost Truffles in the ER. I know the vet tech meant well and when she told me "it was just her time" she was trying to ease my mind that there was nothing anyone could do, but I just wanted to scream, "IT WAS NOT HER TIME! SHE WAS 4 YEARS OLD!!!" 

The Pet Professional's Guide to Pet Loss contains helpful information on what to say versus what not to say, how to identify abnormal grief and navigating the 7 stages of grief. Acknowledging that grief "changes and never really ends" and how to deal with that fact is something anyone suffering a loss or trying to comfort someone who is needs to understand, and this book, written by a pioneering leader in the field of pet loss grief support, lays it all out in a compassionate, heartfelt, and practical way.

Bubbles' Tale - One Cat's Story of a Forever Home by Colleen Sheehan

From the publisher: Life is tough when you are a little stray kitten. Bubbles, a beautiful black and white cat, shares the antics, challenges and fun in her life that make her part of the eternal cat story. After being abandoned as a kitten, this little stray persists until she finds her forever home. This brave little warrior diligently keeps her chosen helper happy, protects her boundaries, and faces her fears. Ensuring that there are lots of brushes and naps along the way, she never gives up. Her optimistic approach to life and the love in her heart touches all who meet her.

Tortie Shorties Review: Told entirely from precious Bubbles' point of view, readers tag along as Bubbles goes from a newborn kitten in the care and comfort of her cat mom and siblings to a brief time of abandonment and finally as she finds her forever home with her "helper" (as she refers to her human). She chronicles the busyness of her daily life with a nice nap required following each activity. The final page tore my heart out but that's to be expected at the end of any animal story. Any cat lover will enjoy following along on this darling feline's adventures accompanied by lots of pictures of the real Bubbles!

Noelle: A Novel by Greg Kincaid

From the publisher: From the New York Times bestselling author of A Dog Named Christmas comes this heartwarming Christmas story about the power of family and the strength and love that comes from our pets.

In this fourth installment of the poignant stories of the McCray family and their lovable canines in rural Kansas, matriarch Mary Ann McCray is determined to shake up Christmas by accepting the role as Crossing Trail's first woman Santa Claus. Mary Ann, always a bit of a rebel, is looking to offer a more progressive voice in the staunchly conservative town at Christmastime and has a few ideas up her red velvet sleeves.

Tortie Shorties Review: I've followed the Dog Named Christmas saga from the very beginning through each book and movie. Noelle is the fourth in the series and begins as a puppy mill pup faces an uncertain future because she doesn't fit the mold of what a purebred dog should look like. Thankfully she ends up in the care of Todd McCray who aims to turn her into a service dog. It doesn't exactly go smoothly, and how she earns her name is adorable. Todd returns home with her to Crossing Trail where he has a new job helping to run the new no-kill shelter in town while also facing big changes in his personal life with longtime girlfriend Laura. At the same time his mother Mary Ann reluctantly accepts the job as Crossing Trail's first woman Santa, and she has huge plans for her new role as "Anna Claus", while elsewhere in town a young family is falling apart thanks to a painful divorce with young children caught in the middle. There's a lot going on with several different story lines, yet they all come together to form a heartwarming holiday "tail". This is the stuff Hallmark Channel Christmas movies are made of, and I look forward to seeing Noelle follow her predecessors' paw prints onto the small screen.

Disclaimer: I received free copies of these books in exchange for a fair and honest review. As members of the Amazon Associates affiliate program, if you click on our links and buy something Mudpie gets a little money for her piggy bank!