Being a veterinarian has always been the only path meant for Dr. Karen Fine: “When people ask me when I knew I wanted to become a veterinarian, I tell them I’ve known my whole life.” Her memoir, The Other Family Doctor, begins with the story of her trip to South Africa—a long way from Massachusetts where Fine grew up and where she will later establish her practice—when she was eleven to stay with her grandparents and extended family. On a weeklong safari in Kruger National Park, in the presence of impalas, monkeys, elephants, lions, and other animals, Fine was overcome with awe. Her insatiable curiosity about what animals can teach us was ignited. Trips to South Africa were precious also as they meant time spent with her grandfather Dr. Maurice Fine, a local, compassionate family doctor. He inspired her in many ways, perhaps most notably with his dedication to house calls: “‘How can you take care of a patient if you’ve never been to their home?’ he’d wonder aloud.” Fine will later be one of the only veterinarians in her region to offer house calls; the descriptions of the care she provides and information she gleans from these calls are proof of her grandfather’s conviction.

Fine takes the reader through her four years of veterinarian training and clinical rotations, which included working at a dairy farm and researching nomadic herding in the Moroccan desert. I appreciated learning about the day-to-day aspects of veterinary medicine as well as the broader issues facing the profession. Fine advocates for increased recognition of the intensity of the job, which has a higher-than-average suicide rate. She describes how veterinarians “have a history of making do, utilizing old equipment salvaged from human hospitals like anesthesia and X-ray machines. . . . [They] excel at using what they have on hand; for instance, fashioning a splint for a kitten from a tongue depressor.” Proud of her profession that “is filled with outside-the-box thinkers who persist until they find a way to make something work,” she puts this into practice herself by studying Eastern traditions and treatments—a “whole new toolshed”—and incorporating them with Western methods to treat patients holistically.

This memoir is about not only Fine the veterinarian but also Fine the pet owner, who marks the chronology of her life with the pets who share it: Taffy the bird, her very first pet, whom she ran home from school to see; Daiquiri the cat who made her first apartment feel like a home; Trudy the dog with whom Fine took daily walks in the woods to get a break from her studies. And then there is Rana the puppy she will adopt close to the time that she meets her future husband, Mike. Rana is brought to Fine’s clinic one morning after she has been hit by not one, but two cars, escaping with only broken toes. Fine recalls: “When I saw the little ears flopping in Amy’s arms, something changed inside me. . . . I felt an almost electric connection to the little being. In that instant, I knew with absolute certainty that I needed this puppy in my life.” Since no one calls to claim the puppy, Fine takes her home, a spontaneous yet preordained decision. The adopted puppy will be named Rana, short for Prana, because it means “life force energy” in Sanskrit, which the little puppy “has in spades.” Fine soon learns that Rana loves to run off-leash, swim, and explore trails—the opposite of ten-year-old Trudy, who never strays far from Fine’s side. The special bond that Fine shares with Rana and the telling of Rana’s illness becomes a central thread of the book.

Fine’s honest, personal writing about Rana is profoundly moving. She expresses what we feel about our pets but may not have put into words ourselves. Loving a pet brings vulnerability coupled with loyalty, a desire to protect and nurture. A pet is a presence, a witness to the events and experiences of our lives. They ask for love so simply—rolling over and offering a furry belly—and give comfort so effortlessly—a warm weight on your lap, a nip at the heel, a purr against the legs. They remind us to pause and be in the moment. We invite these furry and feathered friends into our lives, perhaps spontaneously as Fine did with Rana, knowing that we will outlive them. Fine acknowledges how deeply we love our pets and therefore how difficult it is to know when “it’s time.” This book is enjoyable and informative, but it becomes indispensable in the compassionate way that Fine acknowledges grief for a pet: “People sometimes underestimate the importance of their relationship with their pet to their life’s story. The connection of a human with a dog, a cat, or other animal can be one of the deepest bonds of a person’s life. Many are emotionally shattered when faced with a difficult diagnosis or the loss of a beloved pet. And yet, this intense grief may go unseen and unrecognized, and therefore, unsupported. . . . There is a name for this experience: disenfranchised grief.”

I witnessed this grief when a dear friend’s four-year-old dog was diagnosed with Intervertebral Disc Disease (IVDD) and endured months of treatment, including surgery. My friend had such painstaking decisions to make about how much treatment to do and when it was finally “time” to let the dog go. “She’s only five,” she cried. “If she were older, I wouldn’t put her through the pain of surgery, but I feel like I need to give her a chance.” Then, when the condition resurfaced within a few months, she had to euthanize the dog. Even though almost two years have passed, my friend still feels loss and sadness that her dog died so young. She would apologize for being upset about her dog’s illness and death because she felt that she shouldn’t be crying even one month later. But Fine affirms that this grief is what she has been trying to soothe her whole career. She offers practical resources in the appendix to help those not in her direct care, and she bears witness by sharing her own story in a moving portrait of the healing power of narrative.