Alison Hodgson - The Pug List (with Bonus Content): A Ridiculous Little Dog, a Family Who Lost Everything, and How They All Found Their Way Home

Praise for The Pug List

This is a beautiful story, and beautifully told, of family and loss and love and rebuilding. Alison Hodgsons love for literature is evident on every page.

Shauna Niequist, author of Bread & Wine and Savor.

You dont have to like pugs to love this book. Youll laugh and cry as you follow the familys adventures through tragedy and triumphs, facing it all with honesty, faith, and humor.

Dale Hanson Bourke, author

At long last, research is confirming what dog lovers already know: Each dog is a unique, sentient being with a complex personality. And Oliver, the snorty little black dog of The Pug List, has more personality, and less bladder control, than most. Im in love with this powerful story about a hurting family who adopts and is adopted by an unforgettable dog that makes a little girl named Eden smile once again.

Susy Flory, New York Times bestselling author or coauthor of ten books, including Thunder Dog and Painting with Metro.

A beautifully penned story of resilience and recovery, The Pug List is an inspirational memoir for anyone who has ever loved and lost. This familys emotional journey provides a poignant lesson from a hopeful little girl and a troublesome pug to remind us that love is always worth the struggle.

Julie Cantrell, New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of The Feathered Bone

I loved this storyheart-wrenching, heartwarming, and ultimately life-affirming. Alison Hodgson shows us very clearly the wonderful impact a dog can have on a family and the spiritual truth they teach us. Highly recommended.

Jim Kraus, author of The Dog That Saved Stewart Coolidge and The Dog That Whispered

By turns sweet and terrifying, Alison Hodgson takes us on a journey through the rebuilding of a house and a home. Regaining trust, recovering personalities, and adding a fur kid to the family on the way, she talks without sentimentality about the love of God for us, the love of mothers for families, and the love between kids and dogs. This memoir is a charmer.

Wendy Welch, author of The Little Bookstore of Big Stone Gap

Alison Hodgsons tender lament in the wake of her familys house fire rings with faith and hope, even laughter. Her story mirrors life itself: love and beauty, complicated by griefbut never fully extinguished.

Jen Pollock Michel, author of Christianity Todays 2015 Book of the Year, Teach Us to Want

Why is a pug so good? So a little girl ponders in the pages of her journal while her family rebuilds following an inexplicable and devastating loss. The answer to this simple but deeply theological question is unfolded through this riveting and delightful memoir, encompassing everything that really matters: faith, family, and the unfailing goodness of God in the midst of both suffering and joy.

Karen Swallow Prior, PhD, author of Booked: Literature in the Soul of Me and Fierce Convictions: The Extraordinary Life of Hannah MorePoet, Reformer, Abolitionist

The Pug List is the best kind of book: heartwarming and hilarious and everything in between. In her familys wrenching story of loss and discovery, Alison Hodgson reminds us that even in the worst bits of life, God stands ready to restore and redeem. And that this redemption is all the better when it comes with a dog.

Caryn Rivadeneira, author of Known and Loved: 52 Devotions from the Psalms

Alison Hodgsons The Pug List is an affecting story of the authors experience as a person of faith, a victim of arson, a present wife and mother, and a lover of dogs, who sometimesin desperationfinds herself praying in all capital letters. And its an account of Gods mysterious, loving answers to her prayers.

Jennifer Grant, author of Disquiet Time and Wholehearted Living

What if a ludicrous little dog was the capstone for a family rebuildingnot their physical house, but their feeling of home and haven? What if he was the sneezing, wheezing answer to their prayers? In this tenderly wrought memoir, Alison Hodgson brings wisdom, spirit, and laughter to the story of what happened to her family after an arsonist set fire to their home. Anyone who has ever suffered devastation and loss or loved an animal with their whole heart will find a kindred soul in Alison, her family, and Oliver the Pug too.

Lorilee Craker, author of Anne of Green Gables, My Daughter, and Me: What My Favorite Book Taught Me about Grace, Redemption, and the Orphan in Us All and the New York Times bestseller Through the Storm with Lynne Spears

ZONDERVAN

The Pug List

Copyright 2016 by Alison Hodgson

Requests for information should be addressed to:

Zondervan, 3900 Sparks Dr. SE, Grand Rapids, Michigan 49546

ePub Edition April 2016: ISBN 978-0-310-34384-4

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Alison Hodgson, author.

Title: The pug list : a ridiculous little dog, a family who lost everything, and how they all found their way home / Alison Hodgson

Description: Grand Rapids, Michigan : Zondervan, 2016. | This title is also available as a Zondervan ebookTitle page verso.

Identifiers: LCCN 2015039585 | ISBN 9780310343837 (softcover)

Subjects: LCSH: Hodgson, Alison. | Hodgson, AlisonFamily. | Hodgson, AlisonHomes and haunts. | DwellingsFire and fire preventionUnited States. | ArsonUnited States. | PugUnited StatesBiography. | PuppiesUnited StatesBiography. | Human-animal relationshipsUnited States. | HealingUnited States. | Christian biographyUnited States.

Classification: LCC CT275.H6283465 A3 2016 | DDC 636.76dc 23 LC record available at http://lccn.loc.gov/2015039585

All Scripture quotations, unless otherwise indicated, are taken from The Holy Bible, New International Version, NIV. Copyright 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc. Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide. www.Zondervan.com. The NIV and New International Version are trademarks registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office by Biblica, Inc.

Scripture quotations marked NKJV are taken from the New King James Version. 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

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All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any meanselectronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or any otherexcept for brief quotations in printed reviews, without the prior permission of the publisher.

Published in association with the Books & Such Literary Agency, 52 Mission Circle, Suite 122, PMB 170, Santa Rosa, California 95409-5370, www.booksandsuch.com.

Cover design: James W. Hall IV

Cover photography: Dan Davis Photography

Interior design: Kait Lamphere

First Printing February 2016

This is for my husband, Paul;
and our own trinityChristopher, Lydia, and Eden;
and for Hope, who was always in the story.

Contents

There are some who would argue that a dogs life is insignificant. But God so often chooses to use insignificant things in significant ways. In the grand scheme, were all insignificant until love shows up.