Review De Ricochet:Riding a Wave of Hope with the Dog Who Inspires Millions – By Judy Fridono

Ricochet – More amazing than the regularly amazing pets

This Review will be a bit different than my Usual Review as there won’t be a pros and cons list , there won’t be a What I like and What I don’t section either . Why? Because I have only good things to say for this book .

Book Succinct :

Goodreads. / Amazon .

Ride the wave of hope with Ricochet – the only dog in the world who surfs with wounded warriors, people with disabilities, and children with special needs as an assistive aid and SURFice dog.
This tears-to-triumph story takes readers behind the TV and video sensation and shares the true journey that went from promise to disappointment before ultimately finding life’s purpose. The gorgeous golden retriever Ricochet seemed destined to be a service dog from the moment she was born. She approached her training with boundless energy and surpassed every other dog in her Puppy Prodigy training class. Unfortunately, her love for chasing birds could prove dangerous, for those she would assist. Fifteen months into her training, Ricochet was released, leaving a frustrated owner and a dog without a direction. Yet through a twist of fate, Judy realized that flunking out of school wasn’t the end of the world-and in fact, could be the beginning of a new one. Once Judy learned to let go and let Ricochet be who she really was, they found her true calling as a SURFice dog.

– by Judy Fridono

(succinct cut short due to length of the original succinct seen on Goodreads)

Genre: Non-fiction, Inspiration , Pet

Review:

The book features the amazing and inspiring life of Ricochet, A Female Golden Retriever, who is more magical than any Pet I have ever met or heard of. Ricochet was raised by the author in hopes of making her a Service dog so that she can help people with disabilities and yet Ricochet was a free spirit and had a habit of chasing Birds which is a strict “no” for a Service Dog and so with the authors dreams for Ricochet shattered her frustrations grew but in time she learns that Ricochet is destined to be a more relevant conduit for helping people than a Service Dog can ever be.

I first heard about Ricochet and this book thanks to the amazing Anne @ Inkedbrownies when she reviewed the book on her blog, which you should definitely check out. In case you didn’t here’s a video that Anne Posted on her review that truly told me about the story of Ricochet.

The Author manages to play the readers emotional chords by detailing the events that led to Ricochet helping people in her unique ways. Ricochet as the first SURFice dog Surfs with people with various disabilities bringing joy to those with the disabilities and their family member who are also in pain of those disabilities and while doing so She manages to raise funds for them to achieve their dreams with nothing but help of a Surf board and few smiles on sad faces that became Viral on social media and touched hearts of many well intentioned and good natured people around the globe.

It was truly difficult to continue reading this book with a straight face and there may have been tears *

*I think it was due to a bug flying into my eye or something .I didn’t cry!

My Throat at various point felt like it had a Lump*

*must be something I ate. I DIDN’T CRY OKAY!

OKAY maybe I cried.

The book though is much more than just Ricochet , it also details the hardships of the author that She herself felt all her life (and believe me when I say it her life itself was very rough) , there was also tales of another dog the adoptive elder sister of Ricochet – Rina (the pup that truly touched the author instead of Ricochet as she usually does for other people )and also about the tales of the people who were touched by Ricochet’s attempts at bringing them joy and forgetting their fears and about the many truly good human beings who helped the author and Ricochet in achieving what they eventually did . The story of Patrick and Ian in particular were really touching for me.

At Various points the author talks about Destiny, God, fate, and even talks about her somewhat superstitious beliefs in likes of Dog whisperer and she makes a strong case for her beliefs and sure it didn’t necessarily convert me from a skeptic to a believer but it really did make a valid case for you to believe in the mysterious workings of the world we live in.

Towards the end the author has a compilations’ of various images of the events mentioned in the book and the letters from the people who were helped by Ricochet and those were truly something brilliant to witness as you can see the smiles on faces that had maybe even forgotten all about it

Conclusions:

I don’t necessarily prefer reading Non- fiction but this is one book I’m very glad to have read and bought and I can’t stress enough that You should  You MUST read this , especially if you are a Dog person like me , Or simply because you are a good human , Or maybe you need to be a good human.

Edited : I forgot to mention this initially , but the book shares a part of the income it generates from the book sale for various charity fund Ricochet is associated with , so one more reason to buy this book

Do share your feelings on my blog and this book if you have read it or intend to read it in future

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