A dog walks into a nursing home

At loose ends with her daughter leaving home and her husband on the road, Sue Halpern decided to give herself and Pransky, her under-occupied Labradoodle, a new leash -- er, lease -- on life by getting the two of them certified as a therapy dog team. Smart, spirited, and instinctively compassionate, Pransky turned out to be not only a terrific therapist but an unerring moral compass. And little by little, their adventures expanded and illuminated Halpern's sense of what virtue is and does -- how acts of kindness transform the giver as well as the given-to.