27 year old Andalusia Bixby is still reeling from the sudden death of her father, with whom she had lived all of her life. The young Mormon woman decides to go back home, to the small town of her childhood in Western New York on the banks of the Erie Canal. Being reunited with old friends and meeting new ones is just the injection of hope for a real future she needed. One thing she did not expect was that she would encounter a very special orphan, or that she would adopt him. He is two years old. His name is Henry. He weighs almost 200 pounds. He is an unusually large Great Dane. She has never had a dog-indeed, has never had so much as a hamster in her life. During her journey of learning how to be a good mother to her new dog, she meets someone else who needs her-a reclusive and bitter young man who has sworn off other people, permanently.