In 2022, there were many arti­cles writ­ten about the “Rats With Back­packs” and Dr. Don­na Kean’s role in train­ing them. I won­dered if I could write a sto­ry about these cute rats with their back­packs and how they were being taught to res­cue peo­ple after earth­quakes. I wrote to Dr. Kean on Twit­ter ask­ing her if it was okay for me to write a book about her work. She said, “Yes,” and asked me to con­tact Lily Shal­lom, the com­mu­ni­ca­tions man­ag­er at APOPO for her per­mis­sion too. Ms. Shal­lom also gave me her approval to pro­ceed with the book. That was the begin­ning of an excit­ing and chal­leng­ing jour­ney as there was much to learn. I’m inspired by Don­na’s sto­ry of how her love and work with ani­mals led to her becom­ing a research sci­en­tist with a focus on ani­mal behav­ior.  And, I grew in my under­stand­ing of the APOPO orga­ni­za­tion and its human­i­tar­i­an focus on teach­ing ani­mals to work with peo­ple to save lives. I will be donat­ing a por­tion of the roy­al­ties to APOPO. (JNC)