A celebration of the life-long reward of loving even the most complicated dog.

Of all the dogs Rebecca Frankel met in her years reporting on military K9s, Dyngo was her favorite. The ten-year-old Belgian Malinois saved countless lives during his three combat tours in Afghanistan. And when he retired, Frankel was thrilled to adopt him.

But Frankel quickly realized that living with the 80-pound, bite-trained war dog with a reputation for “being a handful” was not going to be easy. Dyngo, who thrived under RPG blasts and sniper fire, didn’t want comfy dog beds or walks in the park. He wanted to keep hunting for bombs. He whined, he paced, he upended furniture.

Dyngo’s working-dog anxieties overwhelmed Frankel’s tranquil life. The kennel master offered to take him back. Even her dog-crazy dad thought she’d made a mistake.

Unnerved but determined, Frankel resolved to give Dyngo the happy civilian life he deserved. But before she could be the person her dog needed, she had to face her own insecurities about what she could never become: Dyngo’s handler. With riveting scenes from Dyngo’s military life in Afghanistan, Frankel delivers an emotional investigation of their past lives as she and Dyngo began a new one together, forging their own unbreakable bond.

Honest and funny, heart-wrenching and real, A Home for Dyngo is a singular account of an overlooked part of every war hero’s story: life beyond the military, and a celebration of the love we feel for man’s best friend.