Posted: February 8, 2010, 2 a.m. EST
When Christine Sullivan’s brother, Navy Reservist Mark Feffer, was deployed to Afghanistan, she worried. But when she learned that he had befriended a stray puppy in the war-torn country, she was relieved that he had a little canine company so far from home.
Thus begins the amazing journey relayed in Sullivan’s new book “Saving Cinnamon: The Amazing True Story of a Missing Military Puppy and the Desperate Mission to Bring Her Home.”
What began as an occasional canine acquaintance between Feffer and a sweet dog named Cinnamon, who wandered into his military base outside Kandahar, soon blossomed into a deep soul connection between puppy and soldier. Sullivan enjoyed hearing the secondhand accounts of her brother’s new canine companion and understood why, when he prepared to return home, Feffer couldn’t imagine leaving behind his new best friend.
But little did the siblings know that Cinnamon’s transport would entangle them in a 44-day international search when the dog is abandoned by her handler at the airport and goes missing in a foreign country. What follows is an amazing tale of love and determination, heartbreak and redemption, and the unbreakable bond between owner and dog.
Told through Sullivan’s eyes, the book details the harrowing experience of coordinating an international rescue mission to bring her brother’s dog home safely. Through e-mail exchanges, her own detective work and Sullivan’s pure determination, readers follow Cinnamon’s extraordinary journey from her difficult beginnings to the unlikely reunion with her beloved owner.
“Saving Cinnamon: The Amazing True Story of a Missing Military Puppy and the Desperate Mission to Bring Her Home” by Christine Sullivan (St. Martin's Press, 2009, $24.99) is on sale now.