On a crisp April day in Philadelphia, Poppy Starkweather, in her mid-twenties, begins the rounds of her clients—Penelope, Fauna, Horatio, Bliss, and Chutney, accompanied by her own hound, Spock—assuming that this will be another ordinary day. Since abandoning a Ph.D. program in literature, Poppy has stumbled into walking dogs as a stopgap while she figures out what to do with her life. Although happy in a steady relationship, Poppy is leery of further commitment while in career limbo, fearing she might commit the age-old error of hiding from herself inside marriage. Shouldn’t she get it all figured out first? By noon her day will be careening off course, diverted by an unexpected visit from her brother, a scary medical appointment with her boyfriend, and an urgent request from a client. By the small hours of the night, Poppy will be questioning her assumptions about what it means to be truly adult.

Janice Gary never walked alone without a dog - a big dog. Once, she was an adventurer, a girl who ran off to California with big dreams and hopes of leaving her past behind. But after a brutal rape, her youthful bravado vanished, replaced by a crippling need for safety. When she rescues a gangly Lab-Rottweiler pup,Gary is sure she’s found her biggest protector yet. But after Barney is attacked by a vicious dog, he becomes a clone of his attacker, trying to kill any dog that comes near him. Walking with Barney is impossible. Yet walking without him is unthinkable.
    After years of being exiled by her terror and Barney’s defensiveness, Janice risks taking her dog to a park near the Chesapeake Bay. There, she begins the messy, lurching process of walking into her greatest fears. As the leash of the past unravels, Barney sheds the defensive behaviors that once shackled him and Gary steps out of the self-imposed isolation that held her captive for three decades. Beautifully written, Short Leash is much more than a “dog story” or a book about recovering from trauma. It is a moving tale of love and loss, the journey of a broken soul finding itsway toward wholeness.