Nancy had been seriously ill all winter. When she finally recovered, a friend gave her a nice old Kuvasz dog—-a pal to take walks with as she recovered her strength. She had no idea what she was getting into. Magnus was gentle and loving at home, but outside he was ferocious. He snarled and lunged at other dogs and charged at the neighbors, barking furiously. Nancy wondered why. She looked up the Kuvasz breed, and found out that they were livestock guards. Coyote killers. Evidently she was going to have to learn how to manage an alpha dog, because she wasn’t giving him up. She’d already fallen in love. They worked it out. Their love grew, deepened, and matured into a strong, mutual commitment. As he aged, that commitment was tested by illness and infirmity. Nancy’s devotion was inexhaustible as she sought simple, non-invasive ways to help him recover, time after time. People praised her efforts, but she knew that Magnus himself was the key. His spirit was indomitable and his will to live was strong.

About Author:
Ms. Bernard was an illustrator, calligrapher, packaging designer, magazine editor, design critic and commercial copywriter before attempting her first full-length book. Originally from New England, she moved to Silicon Valley in 1991, where the landscapes were moving, the hiking was handy, and the talk was technology. In 2001, she was diagnosed with a chronic pain and fatigue disorder, which radically shrank her horizons. They didn’t open up again until she opened her heart to an elderly dog whose owners gave him up when he needed them most. She now lives in Portland, Oregon, where the trees are tall, the hiking is civilized, and her second rescue dog can’t walk down the street without being mobbed by admirers.



What reviewers are saying...

"This is a moving, funny, sad, and revealing story about a great, life-changing friendship. Yes, one of the friends is a dog. That doesn't matter - Magnus is revealed to be as complex and interesting as any human, and this is a meeting of equals, even if one is the other's pet. The really striking thing about this book is how well Nancy Bernard reveals what Magnus is like, what makes him singular, why she loves him so much, all without overly anthropomorphizing him or getting insufferably cutesy. Nancy is also self-aware about her own personality, so we get a deep sense of who she is beyond just being Magnus's person, what it is to be in her (sharp, questing, feeling, sometimes goofy, sometimes prickly) mind. We come to understand the love between these two unique souls, and to care what happens to them. There's a lot of detail in the book about caring for an aging pet, and I can imagine it as a resource for readers facing that challenge. It certainly brought back the grief and frustration for me of trying to know when the right time was, trying to do the right thing by an animal at the end of its life. At the end, though, what emerges is the texture of Nancy's life with Magnus, and the way each transformed the other for the better."
Lisa Gluskin Stonestreet, author of Tulips, Water, Ash.