Amazing Gracie: A Dog’s Tale

By Dan Dye and Mark Beckloff

Description from Goodreads: It was love at first sight. Amid the frenzied barking and prancing of a house full of Great Danes, one pup was shivering in the corner. Gracie. But when Dan Dye reached her, she struggled to her feet like a clumsy foal, raised her forehead to his, and announced, as clearly as if she had actually spoken the words, “You know I’m the one. Now get me outta here!”

By turns funny, moving, tender, and inspiring, Gracie’s tale is a treat for every dog lover. There is Gracie’s first morning, racing around Dan in the snowy yard. Gracie’s first determination to prove to her step-sisters, Dottie the Dalmatian and Sarah the Black Lab, that she’s one of the girls. Gracie’s defiant romance with a pint-size charmer named Byron, a Boston Terrier from the wrong side of the fence.

Then born of necessity, the eureka moment: When Gracie’s delicate constitution starts turning into anorexia, Dan teaches himself how to cook, and in three days is baking her the cookies that will spur her appetite, launch Three Dog Bakery, and transform their lives forever.

Courage. Compassion. Kindness. Soul. Tenacity. And joy, above all, joy. These qualities Gracie possessed in abundance, and shared with everyone, human or canine, who had the good fortune to cross her path.

Note: Whenever possible, I have supplied link to the author’s “book store” (click on book’s image). If not available from author’s store, I have linked to Amazon. Most of the books included in our recommendations are also available from Dogwise. If you shop at Amazon, don’t forget to check out their AmazonSmile program where Amazon donates a portion of the purchase price to your favorite charitable organization.

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When an energetic eight-week-old albino Great Dane came into our lives one freezing January day, we didn’t realize that our future business advisor and spiritual guide had arrived. She was deaf and partially blind in one eye. She had a delicate constitution. But her tenacious and generous spirit would soon reshape our ideas, our careers and our destinies. She would inspire us to believe in ourselves.

People know us best for our entrepreneurial success as the founders of Three Dog Bakery. What they don’t know is that we owe it all to a gigantic deaf dog named Gracie. But even though Gracie sowed the seeds of our success, this isn’t a book about “making it.” This is the story of a dog who was born with the cards stacked against her, but whose passionate, joyful nature helped her turn what could have been a dog’s life into a victory of the canine spirit – and in the process, save two guys who thought they were saving her.

DAN DYE AND MARK BECKLOFF