What is the positive difference of the solutions of $\dfrac{r^2-3r-17}{r+4}=2r+7$?
Factoring the quadratic in the numerator does not look pleasant, so we go ahead and multiply through by the denominator to get \begin{align*}
r^2-3r-17&=(r+4)(2r+7)\\
r^2-3r-17&=2r^2 + 15r + 28\\
r^2+18r+45&=0\\
(r+3)(r+15)&=0
\end{align*}Therefore the solutions are $r=-3$ and $r=-15$ which have a difference of $\boxed{12}$.