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Press Kit

National Publicity Contact:
Eileen Duhne 415.459.2573 | eduhne@comcast.net

Looking for companionship after a near-fatal car crash, Elena Mannes, an award-winning television journalist and producer, decided to get her first dog. But what she found with her dog Brio shook the foundations of her physical and spiritual worlds, sending her on a quest to discover his true nature and seek out the possibility of interspecies communication—even after death. Soul Dog: A Journey into the Spiritual Life of Animals (Bear & Company, November 13, 2018) explores Mannes’s investigations., offering a new understanding of the unbreakable bond between humans and animals.

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Soul Dog is an exploration of animal spirituality and the
ability of animals to communicate with humans …

even in the afterlife!

Soon after bringing her puppy home, Mannes realized that the master-companion relationship would not be possible with Brio, who quickly showed that he had a mind—and a spirit—of his own. A healer Mannes visited immediately focused on Brio, exclaiming that he was an old soul. Mannes’s growing curiosity about the intelligence, emotions, and consciousness of Brio and other dogs led her to contact an animal psychic in California who described, with amazing accuracy, Brio’s favorite walks and the author’s apartment from the dog’s point of view.

Motivated by her experience, Mannes produced a filmed segment with Diane Sawyer featuring the same psychic, who described Sawyer’s country house and her dog’s favorite spots in the yard. Mannes’s skeptical journalist background compelled her to investigate further. She delved into the world of animal communicators, psychics, and scientists studying animal intelligence, including Rupert Sheldrake, to find answers to her multiplying questions:  Do animals have thoughts and feelings? Consciousness? Souls? Is interspecies communication possible? Can animals reincarnate?

Soul Dog chronicles Mannes’s profound relationship with Brio, his ability to read her mind and emotions, and the messages she received from him after his death. She began to research recent scientific studies looking at animal intelligence, emotions, and extra sensory perception. Mannes shares her life and the afterlife of Brio, including his last days and his messages to her after he passed on. Soul Dog invites readers to move beyond the owner-pet relationship and shows us how to see animals as thinking, feeling, spiritual beings whose connections with us extend far beyond life and death.

“Ms. Mannes brings to life the extraordinary persona of Brio, the soul dog in his many graceful manifestations, and takes us with her on her own inner journey of finding her deeper humanity, by realizing her vitally enriching interconnectedness with the sparkling intelligence of that dog, and through him the multifarious world of all conscious animals. Some of the phenomena she experiences are nothing short of miraculous, yet her deep engagement and vivid description has a powerful ring of authenticity that is utterly convincing. It is my honor and pleasure to greet this fine work and invite you all to enjoy its magical gifts.”

—From the Foreword by Robert Thurman, Jey Tsong Khapa Professor of Buddhology, Columbia

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