Ghost Dogs of the South - A Great Collection of Wonderful Stories!
Written: Feb 24 '09 (Updated Feb 24 '09)
Product Rating:
Pros: Fascinating, interesting stories tales told by expert storytellers!
Cons: Cat people" may miss out by passing over this one!
The Bottom Line: This is a great collection of stories, told expertly, that is fun to read regardless of whether you have a special interest in ghosts or dogs!
bonnieleigh's Full Review: Randy Russell and Janet Barnett - Ghost Dogs of th...
If you like animals, spooky stories, or folklore, this book is for you! It’s my favorite read in a long time.
The authors, Randy Russell and Janet Barnett, are accomplished chroniclers of folklore who are particularly well-versed in Appalachian legend. They loosely define "ghost dogs" as those who apparently return from the dead, humans who return as dogs (or somehow in control of them), and live dogs who demonstrate uncanny abilities or actions. As stated in their fascinating Foreword, "you don’t have to believe in ghosts to enjoy this book!" Amen to that. I enjoyed their mesmerizing story-telling so much that I would happily read any of their colorful storie, told with local color and colloquialisms but without difficult dialect.
This book presents 20 main ghost dog (or dog ghost) tales, plus a couple of short chihuahua-sized legends or encounters worked into the foreword. There’s a story about a dog who hung out by the coal mine his master worked in, became the mine’s mascot, then after his death continued to serve as their warning system for cave-ins or other disasters. One of my favorite stories tells of a dog whojust won’t give up trick-or-treating even though he’s passed on. Another tale is of a headless thost human ghost who talks to human travelers and their living dog, in an effort to get the dog to search for and retrieve his missing head, which was not buried with the rest of his body, thus vexing him for over a century.
Another tale recounts the latter years of an old Lookout Mountain Granny-woman’s life, wherein her dog, Looksee, found bees in the woods whose honey furnished the old lady with her income (and extra) during tough times. Looksee apparently communicated with the honeybees, and was sighted, along with Granny, long after both of them had gone to their final rewards.
In another story, an emotionally abused and neglected pseudo-wife is magically transformed into a dog for short periods of time and exacts both a gentle revenge on her "husband" as well as spending time with him and the children she helped raise.
This book, with its tales of dogs returning from the other side, would actually be my choice for a book that documents the survival of a pet’s soul after death, more so than the Sylvia Browne book I recently read ("All Pets Go To Heaven" see below), and is MUCH more readable and enjoyable. How much of the basis of each story is probably true and how much mere story-telling is hard to say, but every story is interesting and extremely well-told. It’s hard for me to imagine a reader who would not enjoy the stories, and the book.
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