All of us can testify to the remarkable bond that can form between animals and humans and to honour the most recent PDSA Dicken Medal posthumously given to Theo, a military working dog, K9 Magazine has teamed up with publishers, Preface, to offer 5 readers the chance to win this amazing book.
We rely on animals for so many things: companionship, solace, help in our daily lives, and indeed love. But there are some animals, like some humans, who have that extra special something that sets them apart. Something of the selflessness that comes in extreme situations, particularly those that occur in wartime, where an act of bravery can capture the mood of the time. We call it gallantry. We humans celebrate this gallantry with the Victoria Cross. In animals we celebrate it with the PDSA Dickin Medal, the Animals’ Victoria Cross, named after Maria Dickin, CBE, the founder of PDSA (The People’s Dispensary for Sick Animals), the UK’s leading veterinary charity.
In this book, the true tales of heart-rending devotion and duty of every Dickin Medal recipient are told from first-hand accounts and from the citations themselves. There’s Rip the terrier, who is credited with saving upwards of 100 lives sniffing out survivors buried after bombing raids in World War II. Judy the pointer, hero of a Japanese prisoner of war camp. Simon the ship’s cat, who, though injured, continued to stay with his crew under fire. And there’s Buster, a spaniel who located an arms cache in Afghanistan, saving the lives of countless soldiers.
This is a lasting memorial to these remarkable animals and the men and women who came to rely on them.