Book excerpt: When Elizabeth, a young pre-med. student happens upon Damien, a dog being used in laboratory research on her campus, she has no way of knowing how drastically her life - and her beliefs - will be changed. Without meaning to, she slowly becomes drawn into the dog's fate and is soon torn between the love and respect she has come to feel for Damien and the sense of loyalty and obligation she feels for the medical profession as well as her father and grandfather, both cardiac surgeons. With an uncanny ability to write convincingly about life from the point of view of a canine, Diane Jessup tells an extraordinary story of friendship and loyalty in The Dog Who Spoke with Gods. Few writers have ever shown the world of man's closest friend as clearly and movingly. For anyone who has ever loved a dog this is a must-read.