For dog lovers, there's always room for Katz

A new book by Jon Katz is cause for celebration -- at least, for dog lovers like me. Katz is the writer who upended his life for the sake of a border collie, buying a farm in upstate New York to give the anxious dog a few sheep to herd and room to run.

Over time, Katz refurbished the crumbling farmhouse and acquired a donkey, some chickens and goats, and, of course, more dogs. To our great delight (and sometimes pain; dogs do eventually die, you know), he has written about it every step of the way.

In his latest book, "Izzy & Lenore: Two Dogs, an Unexpected Journey, and Me" (Villard Books, 224 pages, $24), Katz (whose name should be Dogz, don't you think?) rescues yet another anxious border collie and discovers its hidden talent.

Izzy's owners had bought a farm and planned to get some sheep but instead moved back to the city, leaving Izzy behind. For three years.

A caretaker fed him and brought him inside when the weather was cold, but the rest of the time the dog was left to run up and down and up and down and up and down the fence. Border collies need work, and if they aren't given any, they find their own. Izzy's work became protecting that fence.

Finally, someone called Katz. "I didn't need another dog," he writes. "I almost never really do." He already had three.

But, of course, he ends up taking Izzy. It's not easy, getting him in the truck, and then the terrified dog vomits the whole way to Katz's farm. But once there, it doesn't take too long for him to settle down, and settle in.

This remarkable dog is completely at home with the sick. His instincts are powerful; he can tell how much or how little contact they crave. He hops up onto the bed, avoids the tubes and machines, curls up next to the patient, and goes to sleep. If a dog can have empathy -- and Katz is always careful not to attribute human emotions to his animals -- this one does.

Patients who have been agitated, or frightened, or in intense pain relax in Izzy's presence. An Alzheimer's patient calms for the first time in weeks. A dying child is able to sleep, "his hand on Izzy's head or shoulder ... as if with a large stuffed animal."

Katz eventually acquires one more dog, a black Lab puppy named Lenore, who has her own special gifts. When Katz finds himself battling an unexpected and nearly overwhelming depression, it is Lenore who is able to gently pull him out of it.

"If Izzy could go into one home after another and bring comfort and peace to the dying, Lenore could come into my own home, in the midst of a miserable depression, and make me smile."

Two remarkable dogs, and one charming story.