Virtually every book on every topic is sent by publishers to The Stranger for review—way more than could possibly be covered by a weekly paper. There are stacks and stacks of crappy-looking books in the office, mostly embossed-cover mystery/crime novels, inspirational stories, and new-age self-help manuals claiming fresh ideas to renovate your life. The other week, I noticed two books with strikingly similar covers—orange text, baby-blue-fading-into-white backgrounds—offering the same reward: a lesson. These were books The Stranger would normally never review, yet I felt strangely compelled to compare and contrast what a dog and a disabled boy could teach me. My curiosity was overwhelming.

Lessons from Jacob: A Disabled Son Teaches His Mother About Courage, Hope, and the Joy of Living Each Day to the Fullest is the story of a boy born with Canavan disease. Canavan is a fatal genetic neurodegenerative disorder that usually claims its victims by age 4. It renders the children nearly helpless: They can't see, speak, walk, eat, or even lift their heads. Jacob's crowning physical achievement in the story is when he is able to push a button of his own free will, activating a fan that blows out his birthday candles. The book, written by his mother, is an account of what it's like to care for Jacob, and how the responsibility of looking after someone who is helpless dominates every aspect of her life. Although she tries hard to point out all the love and warmth Jacob brings her, you can't help but be deflated by the everyday strains she is forced to endure.

The main lesson she offers is to "take a situation, any situation, and make it positive." This is a lesson that anyone could have guessed without reading a page. The book's real lesson is this: Although it is possible to receive love from an immense burden, if that burden can be prevented, it should be. Canavan is a genetic disorder. If both parents have the recessive gene, there is a one-in-four chance their children will be born with the disease. The second time Schwartz got pregnant, she had the fetus screened, and sure enough, it had Canavan as well. So she chose the only logical option: She terminated the pregnancy. After that, she went on to have two healthy, normal babies. She then went on to start an organization that provides free Canavan screening for all pregnant mothers in Canada. She hopes that, over time, the disease will be eliminated altogether.

Ted Kerasote has nothing to say about disabled children, though he has plenty to say about a golden-retriever mix he found abandoned in the mountains. In Merle's Door: Lessons from a Freethinking Dog, every aspect of his relationship with Merle is recounted and hypothesized upon. What Kerasote has remembered and cataloged about his dog is so exhaustive it might almost be sad, not to mention boring, if he didn't back up his stories with fascinating philosophies and historical accounts of dog psychology.

Merle was raised in the wide-open lands of Wyoming, where he was free to make his own decisions and learn from his mistakes. He is proof that a dog left to his own devices (more or less) can be a thoughtful, self-disciplined companion. The lessons Kerasote learned from Merle "weren't so much about giving dogs physical doors to the outside, although that is important, but about providing ones that open onto the mental and emotional terrain that will develop a dog's potential."

Likewise, when people are free to live and learn without arbitrary boundaries, human life is more profound and meaningful. Our potential as living creatures can be realized only when we are not caged in. When walls are put up and we are prohibited from making important decisions for ourselves—like, say, terminating a pregnancy because the child will be a helpless, massive burden—we lose our capacity to make life better for ourselves. Merle teaches us that a dog, or any being really, has limitless, unexpected potential if he is given the freedom to learn for himself. Jacob teaches us that we should love what we have been given, but that the life of a parent should never be encumbered in the way Ellen Schwartz's is if it doesn't have to be.

Unwittingly, a disabled boy and a freethinking dog have come together to teach us all an important lesson about a woman's right to choose.