The Dog Always Knows follows a handler from Texas highways to Afghanistan, where working dogs were used to find drugs, explosives, and threats hidden in plain sight. The book takes readers through the training, the stops, the searches, the deployments, and the moments when a dog’s alert meant the difference between moving forward and not making it home.

It is also a personal story. It deals with the cost of the work, the strain it puts on the body and mind, and the weight that comes with trusting a dog in places where mistakes can kill. At the center of the memoir is a simple truth the author learned again and again: when the dog tells you something is there, you listen.