Good Dog Reads
Welcome to our book page — a collection of dog book news and reviews from the archives of ohmidog!
Clicking on the title or cover of any book mentioned here will take you to my Amazon Affiliate store — a collection of some of my favorite (mostly) dog books — where you can learn more about, or even buy, them. To see them all, click on the bespectacled dog to the left.
If you’d like to submit a book for consideration, contact muttsblog@verizon.net.
Top Dogs and Their Pets
Celebrities and their pets are the subject of a new photo book by David Woo, a Texas photographer who says Steve Miller and his three dogs proved the most difficult image to capture.
Woo, a photographer for the Dallas Morning News, includes 91 celebritities — most of them with Texas connections — in the book, “Top Dogs and Their Pets.”
Other subjects include Owen Wilson, Joe Cocker, Robert Wagner, Cesar Millan, Lisa Loeb, James Baker, Dr. Phil and Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger, the pilot propelled to fame by his emergency landing in the Hudson River, according to the Houston Chronicle. All the photos are black and white, shot against a white background.
Woo said he spent four days at the home of his friend Miller, whose dogs — Lady, Daisy and Maisey — wouldn’t sit still.
Proceeds from Top Dogs and Their Pets go to the Cesar and Ilusion Millan Foundation.
A Dog Named Christmas
A dog adoption promotion dreamed up as fiction has become a reality, and on a national scale.
After Greg Kincaid’s novel, “A Dog Named Christmas,” was published last year, a reader named Pam, who worked at a veterinary clinic in Florida, got inspired by what transpires in the book:
Hayley, the fictional manager of an animal shelter is so upset at seeing her kennels full that she calls the news media and makes an offer — anyone who agrees to take a pet home for Christmas can return it afterward.
So Pam gave the same promotion a shot in real life. Her “Foster a Lonely Pet for the Holidays” program resulted in all 37 dogs at her shelter being dispensed to foster homes within 24 hours of the story appearing on a Pensacola TV station. One hundred more viewers who saw the report asked to be put on a waiting list.
Author/lawyer Kincaid made up the promotion while writing a story for his family a few Christmases ago, according to the Kansas City Star. It evolved into a published novel, and a TV movie that premieres tonight.
“A Dog Named Christmas” — the story of how a dog changed the lives of the family who adopted him — will air at 8 p.m. on CBS. In conjunction with the broadcast, CBS has agreed to sponsor a nationwide “Foster a Lonely Pet” program with Petfinder.com. More than 2,000 shelters and rescues across the country are participating.
Most shelters, despite their urgent need to find homes for dogs, refrain from encouraging holiday adoptions. Dogs adopted on impulse and as Christmas gifts often end up getting returned or, worse yet, abandoned. But placing them in foster care for the holidays relieves the pressure at shelters, ensures they will be returned if unwanted and often leads to full-fledged adoptions.
And it gives a shelter dog a nice break for the holidays.
“We do a lot of nice things at Christmas,” Kincaid said. “I was thinking, ‘Why is it that we have all these shelters with animals in them, and people don’t seem interested in extending the same generosity to them?”
It All Started with a Dog
How’s this for a novel idea?
Leigh Mcmillan, author of ”It All Started with a Dog,” is offering sex to the person who buys the 1,000th copy of her novel.
Specifically, and to be perfectly clear, she’s offering the unpublished sex scene she “took out of the book because it would have offended my mother.”
The novel tells the tale of a Washington, D.C. lawyer who has spent a lifetime protecting her heart from the dangerous possibilities of love. When she finds a ragged stray dog on the streets of Georgetown and brings him home with her, it leads to a sequence of startling events that send her down a path she’s never explored.
Since Mcmillan admits to it in an email sent to fans and others, we’ll go ahead and reveal it here: No dog dies in the book. So, as a holiday gift, it’s not a downer.
Mcmillan will be doing a book signing at 7 p.m. Tuesday, Dec. 1, at the Gallery of the Arts at 411 W. Fourth St. in Winston-Salem, N.C.
Nubs’ story to become a movie
Warner Bros. is buying the story of Nubs, the stray Iraqi mutt who befriended a group of Marines and was shipped home to the U.S. by one of them.
Nubs — so named because most of both his ears were lopped off by Iraqi soldiers — befriended Marine Major Brian Dennis and his fellow soldiers while Dennis was on patrol in the Anbar province. When Dennis was required to report to another location, 70 miles away, he bid Nubs farewell, but two days later, Nubs showed up at his new camp.
The story became a media phenomenon in the fall, with Dennis and Nubs appearing on “Today,” “The Tonight Show With Conan O’Brien” and “The Ellen DeGeneres Show.”
In addition to Dennis’ life rights, filmmakers have acquired the top-selling children’s book “Nubs: A Marine, a Mutt and a Miracle,” which Dennis wrote with Mary Nethery and Kirby Larson. The Little, Brown Books for Young Readers title was published two weeks ago and sits at No. 4 on the New York Times children’s best-seller list.
Justin Zackham (”The Bucket List”) will write and produce the film, according to a Reuters report.
Inside of a Dog
Your dog licks your face because he loves you, right?
Ah, if it were only that simple.
There are those that will assure you that yes, those licks mean affection — your “fur babies” are showering you with, in addition to a little slobber, love and gratitude.
There are also those more scientific types who will dissect the act so emotionlessly as to leave you never wanting another lick again — or perhaps even another dog, or at least not another dog book.
Thank Dog, then, for Alexandra Horowitz, who in her new book “Inside of a Dog,” manages to probe doggie behavior in a manner both scientific and passionate, without stomping on the sanctity of the human-dog bond like it’s a cigarette in need of extinguishing.
The book’s title comes from the Groucho Marx quote: “Outside of a dog, a book is man’s best friend. Inside of a dog, it’s too dark to read.”
What makes Inside of a Dog, released in September, one of the best dog books of the year is that it’s not too dark to read. Horowitz, a psychology professor, former staff member at The New Yorker, and long-time dog-lover is able — based in equal parts on her scientific research and her own personal experiences as a dog owner — to correct the many misconceptions about dogs without snuffing out the special light we see inside them.
As for those face licks, they have an evolutionary basis — it originally was a way for pups to encourage their moms and dads to regurgitate what they had eaten while hunting, thus sharing their prechewed bounty.
That doesn’t mean your dog is trying to make you puke everytime it licks your face, only that what’s now a ritualized greeting began that way.
The book gets to the root of other canine behaviors, as well, including:
· How dogs tell — and actually smell — time.
· Why it’s been futile leaving your television on for your dog all these years (and why this may be different now).
· How your dog really feels about that raincoat you make him wear.
· Why some dogs joyfully retrieve tossed balls and sticks while others just stare at you like you’re a fool for throwing them.
While not a training manual, it’s a book every dog trainer should read, and perhaps every dog owner who wants to truly understand not just what their pet means to them, but what their pet means.
The book goes into how dogs see, smell and hear the world, what their barks mean, what their tail wags mean. And it avoids the common oversimplifications associated with seeing dogs solely in terms of human behavior, or seeing them solely as modern-day wolves.
Horowitz, and the book, show some appreciation and understanding of the evolutions that have taken place, and continue to — the evolution of dogs, the evolution of humans, and the evolution of the bond between the two.
To the Rescue: Found Dogs with a Mission
Rescued dogs — and the courageous work many of them go on to do — are the theme of “To the Rescue: Found Dogs with a Mission,” a new book written by animal adoption activist Elise Lufkin.
Lufkin, who also wrote “Found Dogs: Tales of Strays Who Landed on Their Feet ” and “Second Chances” has put together a series of stories about rescued dogs who have gone on to visit hospitals, prisons and nursing homes, guide the blind and deaf, and detect narcotics and bombs.
While her previous books look at how dog owners have been rewarded by the dogs they rescue, this one focuses on owners of rescued dogs who have trained and certified their dogs for special work that has an impact on the lives of many more humans.
Lufkin, as with her two previous books, is donating all profits to shelters and other animal-related organizations.
The poignant photographs in the book are the work of Diana Walker, a contract photographer for Time magazine since 1979.
The dog in the photo above is Marlee, who has a partially amputated right foreleg and was discovered by a group of veterinary students at a local pound.
Veterinarian Karen Lanz explains in the book what happened next:
“…If left at the shelter, the dog would surely have been euthanized … Marlee’s sweet, gentle nature made me realize immediately that she would make a wonderful therapy dog. After a little fine-tuning at local obedience classes, we were ready … Soon my brother-in-law, who is a lieutenant colonel in the Army Reserve, suggested that Marlee’s status as an amputee could make her a welcome addition to the therapy dogs visiting at Walter Reed Army Medical Center.
“I contacted People Animals Love (PAL) and was fortunate enough to join their groups on visits to Walter Reed. Marlee was well received at the hospital, and I think she was a source of inspiration for some of the brave veterans who are returning from the Iraq war with missing limbs and other disabilities. Guys in wheelchairs marked “Purple Heart Combat Wounded” would say to this little dog, ‘I know what you’re going through’ … I will always be grateful to the students who saw potential in a badly injured dog and rescued her. Marlee has been a joy every day.”
The book is full of similar stories, and even more can be found on the book’s website.
The Wolf in the Parlor
Something old and something new sent two-time Pulitzer Prize-winning science writer Jon Franklin on a quest to document the transition of wild wolf to family pet.
The old thing was a photo — a man and puppy, exhumed from a 12,000-year-old grave. The new thing was a wife — he married a dog lover. Though he’d never been a dog person, Franklin gave in, and soon he and his wife were sharing their home with a clever poodle named Charlie.
Between watching his own dog evolve from puppy to family member, and his interviews and research, Franklin spent 10 years studying the origins and significance of the dog, and its peculiar attachment to humans.
The result is “The Wolf in the Parlor: The Eternal Connection Between Humans and Dogs.”
Franklin — a former science writer for Baltimore’s Evening Sun, now a journalism professor at the University of Maryland — builds on evolutionary science, archaeology, behavioral science and his firsthand experience, arriving at the conclusion that man and dog are more than just inseparable; they are part and parcel of the same creature.
Moments with Baxter
Baxter the therapy dog, who we featured here last week, passed away Friday.
The news was broken on Facebook, where Baxter has his own page, in a message sent to members of The Baxter Bussey fan club :
“Baxter, the world’s best and oldest therapy dog, 19 years and 6 months, eased peacefully from his life on Friday afternoon, October 16th, 2009 … The sweetest angel. … We love you Baxter, and many hugs to his family…”
Baxter worked with hospice patients, bringing them comfort and love at the end of their lives His story was published in a book, “Moments with Baxter” all proceeds from which are being donated to animal and hospice charities.
Nubs: The True Story of a Mutt, a Marine & a Miracle
Nubs, the one-time Iraqi street mutt — so named by American soldiers for the stubs where his ears used to be — appeared on this morning’s Today Show, along with the Marine major who rescued him.
Nubs befriended Marine Major Brian Dennis and his fellow soldiers while Dennis was on patrol in the Anbar province.
When Dennis was required to report to another location, 70 miles away, he bid his friend farewell and left with little hope that Nub would survive on the war torn streets. Already, the dog had his ears cut off, and had been stabbed in the side with a screwdriver — both, Dennis believes, by Iraqi soldiers.
Two days after Dennis arrived at his new location, Nubs showed up.
Dennis said he was inside headquarters when a fellow Marine came in and said, “You’re not going to believe who’s outside.”
“Who’s outside?” Dennis asked.
“Nubs is outside,” the soldier said.
After a joyful reunion, Dennis was informed that, since the military prohibits keeping dogs in war zones, he had four days to get rid of him. Given the bond they’d established and the dangers Nubs faced, Dennis was hesitant to do that.
Strays in Iraq, Dennis said today, serve as a needed escape for soliders — “an escape from the drudgery and the mundane life and the bad things you see at times.”
Dennis and his friends launched an Internet campaign and raised $5,000 to send Nubs to a friend in the U.S..
In March 2008, about a month after Nubs arrived, Dennis returned from Iraq and was reunited with the dog.
Now the whole story has become a book, “Nubs, the True Story of a Mutt, a Marine and a Miracle.”
Woof: Writers on Dogs
“Woof!” — a fetching collection of pithy, poignant and sometimes even puckish essays about dogs — comes out in paperback this month.
Edited by Lee Montgomery — who also writes about a schnauzer who’s not, shall we say, master of his domain — the anthology presents the work of 20 acclaimed writers who have turned their attention to dogs, most frequently their own.
Original personal essays include Rick Bass’s tale about the week his hunting dog, Point, was given a fatal prognosis. Abigail Thomas writes about the maneuvering it takes to share a bed with three dogs. And, in my personal favorite, Denis Johnson gives voice to The Colonel, his bullmastiff, who recounts a day in his and Johnson’s lives.
Reading it can be as emotionally tumultuous as living with a dog. Some stories deal with the happy peaks; some with the sad valleys. Some are heartbreaking, some hilarious.
Published by Penguin Books, “Woof” includes an introduction by renowned dog writer Elizabeth Marshall Thomas.
Flawed Dogs
Berkeley Breathed says the inspiration for “Flawed Dogs,” his children’s book turned illustrated novel, came from a photo he saw of a Michael Vick dog taken in by Best Friends, the animal sanctuary in Utah.
“The book happened because I came across both a picture and a quote at about the same time — a picture of one of Michael Vick’s fight dogs. It was set to be put down, but a shelter in Utah decided to take the dog and a few others at the same time and try to rehabilitate them,” Breathed said in a CNN interview at his home in Santa Barbara.
“This was the first time the dog had ever received any affection in its life. … It’s the most moving picture of a dog I’ve ever seen, having gone through an impossible transition and fallen back to where dogs naturally go, which is just loving people.”
Breathed, the Pulitzer Prize-winning cartoonist behind “Bloom County” and “Opus,” has a pit bull of his own, Pickles, one of several dogs he and his wife Jody have rescued over the years.
In “Flawed Dogs: The Shocking Raid on Westminster” (Philomel Books), the hero is a resilient dachshund with a soup ladle for a leg.
The dog, named Sam the Lion, goes through many travails in the book, the opening scene of which is a dog fight. From there, he gets shot at, ends up in a research labs, and occupies some pretty bad shelters — before meeting up with his nemesis, an evil poodle named Cassius, at the Westminster Dog Show.
The book is intended for children 8 to 12.
Tarra and Bella: The Elephant and Dog Who Became Best Friends
Tarra and Bella, the elephant and dog who bonded big time at a Tennessee animal sanctuary, can now be seen in book form.
Tarra and Bella: The Elephant and Dog Who Became Best Friends, recounts the story of Tarra, a retired circus elephant who became the first resident of The Elephant Sanctuary in Tennessee. When other elephants moved in and developed close friendships, Tarra remained something of a loner — until the day she met a stray mixed-breed dog named Bella.
It was love at first sight, and the unlikely duo became inseparable. They ate together, slept together, and even seemed to understand each other’s language. When Bella suffered a severe spinal injury, Tarra stayed by her side and was there for her until Bella regained her health.
The Steve Hartman report on of Tarra and Bella (above) is one of most popular videos of all time at CBSNews.com. And well worth watching again:
Old Dogs
I’ve only seen an excerpt, printed in the Washington Post last weekend — and about to be liberally excerpted here — but Gene Weingarten’s new book, “Old Dogs Are the Best Dogs,” looks like one I want to carry with me into old age.
Weingarten, a Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter and humor columnist for the Post, teamed up with photographer Michael Williamson to profile 63 old dogs, all between the ages of 10 and 17 when they were photographed.
One of those profiled is Weingarten’s dog, Harry.
“He was nearly 13, old for a big dog. Walks were no longer the slap-happy Iditarods of his youth, frenzies of purposeless pulling in which we would cast madly off in all directions, fighting for command. Nor were they the exuberant archaeological expeditions of his middle years, when every other tree or hydrant or blade of grass held tantalizing secrets about his neighbors. In his old age, Harry had transformed his walk into a simple process of elimination — a dutiful, utilitarian, head-down trudge. “
Weingarten begins the piece with a description of old Harry wistfully watching a younger dog play Frisbee in the park and goes on to share some valuable insights — both about aging mutts and their humans.
“Old dogs can be cloudy-eyed and grouchy, gray of muzzle, graceless of gait, odd of habit, hard of hearing, pimply, wheezy, lazy and lumpy. But to anyone who has ever known an old dog, these flaws are of little consequence. Old dogs are vulnerable. They show exorbitant gratitude and limitless trust. They are without artifice. They are funny in new and unexpected ways. But, above all, they seem at peace…”
Weingarten writes that his dog became “old” at the age of 9.
“I believe I know exactly when Harry became an old dog. He was about 9 years old. It happened at 10:15 on the evening of June 21, 2001, the day my family moved from the suburbs to the city. The move took longer than we’d anticipated. Inexcusably, Harry had been left alone in the vacated house — eerie, echoing, empty of furniture and of all belongings except Harry and his bed– for eight hours. When I arrived to pick him up, he was beyond frantic.
“He met me at the door and embraced me around the waist … He wasn’t barking at me in reprimand, as he once might have done. He hadn’t fouled the house in spite. That night, Harry was simply scared and vulnerable, impossibly sweet and needy and grateful. He had lost something of himself, but he had gained something more touching and more valuable. He had entered old age.
Quoting Kafka — “the meaning of life is that it ends” — Weingarten goes on to talk about mortality, and what dogs might teach us about it.
” …Our lives are shaped and shaded by the existential terror of knowing that all is finite. This anxiety informs poetry, literature, the monuments we build, the wars we wage, the ways we love and hate and procreate — all of it. Kafka was talking, of course, about people. Among animals, only humans are said to be self-aware enough to comprehend the passage of time and the grim truth of mortality. How then, to explain old Harry at the edge of that park, gray and lame, just days from the end, experiencing what can only be called wistfulness and nostalgia? I have lived with eight dogs, watched six of them grow old and infirm with grace and dignity, and die with what seemed to be acceptance. I have seen old dogs grieve at the loss of their friends. I have come to believe that as they age, dogs comprehend the passage of time, and, if not the inevitability of death, certainly the relentlessness of the onset of their frailties. They understand that what’s gone is gone.”
At the risk of getting sued for over-excerpting, here’s the conclusion he reaches:
“Some people who seem unmoved by the deaths of tens of thousands through war or natural disaster will nonetheless summon outrage over the mistreatment of animals, and they will grieve inconsolably over the loss of the family dog. People who find this behavior distasteful are often the ones without pets. It is hard to understand, in the abstract, the degree to which a companion animal, particularly after a long life, becomes a part of you. I believe I’ve figured out what this is all about. It is not as noble as I’d like it to be, but it is not anything of which to be ashamed, either.
“In our dogs, we see ourselves. Dogs exhibit almost all of our emotions; if you think a dog cannot register envy or pity or pride or melancholia, you have never lived with one for any length of time. What dogs lack is our ability to dissimulate. They wear their emotions nakedly, and so, in watching them, we see ourselves as we would be if we were stripped of posture and pretense. Their innocence is enormously appealing. When we watch a dog progress from puppyhood to old age, we are watching our own lives in microcosm. Our dogs become old, frail, crotchety and vulnerable, just as Grandma did, just as we surely will, come the day. When we grieve for them, we grieve for ourselves.”
Weingarten said in his Post blog last week that, in the introduction to the book — it’s just released, by Simon & Schuster, and should showing up in bookstores about now — he anticipated lots of questions from readers wanting to know how many of the featured dogs are still alive.
“Our answer will be: ‘All of them.’”
Finally Winsome
Jennifer Carle is the Baltimore-based author of Finally Winsome, a memoir of her now deceased black Lab mix, all proceeds from which are going to the Maryland SPCA.
That’s where Carle adopted Winsome, or Winn for short, in 1994.
Winn quickly proved herself to be a handful, chowing down on Carle’s couch, instilling fear in other other dogs, biting a neighbor and causing a ruckus during obedience class.
But, as the years passed, a funny thing happened, the overprotective dog, as she aged, got arthritic, and blind and deaf, and she and her family reversed roles: The overprotective dog came to need protection and, in providing it, Carle learned a little about dogs, humans and life.
Carle — a longtime supporter of the Maryland SPCA — worked as a psychologist before raising two children and going to work in her husband’s medical practice in Towson, where the family also lives.
A Rare Breed of Love
You can’t escape the message in author-activist Jana Kohl’s book, “A Rare Breed of Love,” the story of her dog Baby, rescued after years of abuse in a puppy mill.
And you certainly can’t escape the message on the bus in which she and her dog Baby are touring the country to promote the book and campaign against puppy mills.
As the video above, produced by the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS) shows, the bus is a rolling anti-puppy mill billboard.
Kohl’s dog spent nine years in a puppy mill, where she was tattooed with a number and had her vocal cords cut so the owners wouldn’t have to listen to her cries. She was rescued by a passing stranger on the day she was to be killed because she had gotten too old to breed. Her leg had to be amputated after her rescue due to the earlier abuse.
With Kohl, Baby has become a “national spokesdog” to raise awareness about cruelty in the dog breeding industry. The book contains more than 60 photographs of Baby and supporters of the cause — from Barack Obama to Judge Judy, from Lindsay Lohan to Amy Sedaris.
Guardians of Being
The creator of the comic strip MUTTS has teamed up with spiritual guru Eckhart Tolle on a book that celebrates dogs, life and “living in the moment” — the latter being a philosophy best taught by members of the canine species.
Normally motivational speak quickly takes a Tolle on me, but I will admit to liking “Guardians of Being,” both for the point it makes, and the way it makes it — more light-hearted than heavy-handed, thanks in large part to Patrick McDonnell’s deft touch.
McDonnell uses the cast of characters from the MUTTS strip to illustrate Tolle’s lessons on the value of staying in the present moment, appreciating the oneness of life and recognizing the beauty we sometimes forget to notice around us.
McDonnell is the award-winning mind behind MUTTS, which appears in over 700 newspapers. (He’s also on the board of the Humane Society of the United States and a long-time advocate of dogs and the environment.) And he’s the author of “Shelter Stories.”
Tolle, author of “The Power of Now,” speaks and teaches around the world. He lives in Vancouver, Canada, but spends most of his time on the bestseller list.
After reading “The Power of Now,” McDonnell sought out Tolle to collaborate on “Guardians of Being.”
“He created a passionate, humorous, enlightening meditation on the power and grace that animals can bring into our lives,” McDonnell said of Tolle. “Eckhart has translated what our companion animals have been telling us for ages: Life is good. Live in the now. Enjoy.”
One Nation Under Dog
One Nation Under Dog, one of the latest contributions to the growing pile of American dog lit, is a highly readable volume that looks at our obsession with dogs, and the lengths (or are they extremes?) we go to on their (or is it our?) behalf.
As dog lit goes, this one’s worth scooping up, and not just for its accounting of excessive human behavior when it comes to dogs — from popping Prozac in our puppies, to luxury pet spas, to doggie social networking, to the dog food revolution, to spending our savings to prolong our dogs’ lives.
The book covers all that, and more, in an entertaining manner, but it’s at its best when it ventures into figuring out what’s behind the mania.
Written by Michael Schaffer, who like me — and like some guy named Grogan who once wrote a book about some dog named Marley — is a former writer for the Philadelphia Inquirer, One Nation Under Dog, chronicles the rise of the pet industry, where sales have risen from $17 billion to $43 billion in the past decade.
I asked Shaffer in an email interview what he sees as the factors behind the fast rising status of the dog — the species’ transition from backyard to master bedroom.
“If you look at data on the pet population, you see it starting to grow faster than the human population only around the late-60s or early 1970s. Had people’s choice to get pets just been a function of postwar prosperity, it might have spiked sooner. But the rise coincides with a bunch of other things: More divorce, moves away from old tight-knit urban neighborhoods, decline of labor unions, more moving away from family.”
In other words, we’ve turned to dogs for the sense of community some of us often don’t find in our fellow humans.
“My hunch is that as the various human social-support networks declined, people leaned on their pets for more of that,” Schaffer added. “I write in my book that people have always loved pets, but the terms of the love change in ways that reflect the times. So as all this happened, the Man’s Best Friend in the backyard became the full-fledged family member who slept in our beds. They didn’t change; we did.”
Schaffer has a dog of his own, a Saint Bernard, and he — the dog — is on anti-depressants. It was the dog, Schaffer said, that led to the book — “a big, drooly Saint Bernard named Murphy who we found on Petfinder and adopted from a New Jersey shelter. I remember as we drove out there, my wife and I promising we’d never, never spend big dollars on food, vet care, toys. We weren’t going to become like all of those people in newspaper stories about kooky pet-owners. But, of course, in real life it’s a bit more complicated. I’d never had a pet before so I just followed the lead of everyone in the neighborhood who had dogs. That standard of care, though, had all of my family rolling their eyes at our alleged pampering of Murphy.
“My sense is that what happened was that the definition of normal, for petcare, had changed pretty radically in the relatively short time between when they got dogs and when I did. And as a journalist, I think that when the definition of normal changes so much so fast, it means something interesting is going on. I decided to go find out what it was.”
The Complete Healthy Dog Handbook
In the foreword to “The Complete Healthy Dog Handbook,” author Betsy Brevitz, DVM, mentions a few of the new veterinary tools, treatments and procedures that — while rare five years ago — have become commonplace since then: CT and MRI scans, joint replacements, radiation therapy and a host of new drugs and vaccines.
All those advancements in veterinary medicine are one reason she wrote the book — a revised version of the “Hound Health Book,” published five years ago.
It’s a handy volume, well-organized and highly readable, with easily located advice on dealing with everything from digestive issues to behavioral problems. Written mostly in question and answer format, and in a straightforward, no-bull style, it’s the kind of book that could save you an unnecessary trip to the vet, and ensure you make a necessary one.
Brevitz spent 10 years as a magazine journalist before deciding to switch careers and enrolling in veterinary school at at 35. She practices in northern New Jersey. The first book was an offshoot of an “Ask the Vet” column she started writing for the website Urbanhound.com, not long after it was launched in New York.
The book devotes chapters to digestive problems; skin problems; fleas, ticks and worms; eyes and ears; heart and circulation; respiratory problems; bone and joint problems; and behavioral issues, among others.
Every dog owner should have a place to turn for quick and up-to-date answers to questions about their dog’s care, and this book — while it doesn’t replace the veterinarian — fills that role nicely.
Animals Make Us Human
If getting an interview with Temple Grandin weren’t impressive enough, Philadelphia Inquirer reporter John Timpane somehow finagled a home visit from the woman who may understand animals better than anyone in America.
Once she got past his dogs, Ricky and Esco, Grandin (who’d been giving a reading nearby) sat down and talked to Timpane about her new book, Animals Make Us Human, and her continuing quest, in Timpane’s words, “to explain animals to people and people to themselves.”
Grandin, as Timpane notes in his story, is perhaps the best-known person with autism in the United States. She holds a Ph.D. in animal behavior; is a professor at Colorado State; author of Thinking in Pictures and Animals in Translation; and consultant on how to treat animals in the wild and in industrial settings such as corrals and slaughterhouses.
In Animals Make Us Human, Grandin writes that, for an animal, “a good life requires three things: freedom from pain and negative emotions, and lots of activities to turn on seeking and play.”
“I think a lot of dogs today have a horrible life,” Grandin said in the interview. “In my town, Fort Collins, [Colo.], we have draconian leash laws. If you walk down any residential street in Fort Collins, dogs are whining in half the houses. Dogs need to have a doggy social life, a life off the leash. When we were kids and all the dogs ran free, a lot of dogs were killed by cars, and that was bad, but we also had a lot of happier dogs. Now that we live in such a controlled world for dogs, you need to spend some time with your dog – an hour or so of good play, a walk in the park.”
Grandin has said repeatedly that her autism has given her a powerful connection to the way animals think. “It began when I realized I think in pictures, not verbally,” she said. “Animals, lacking the verbal aspect, see everything in terms of what they see, feel, hear … Most of us have just never looked at things from an animal’s point of view.”
Walter the Farting Dog
“Walter the Farting Dog,” the children’s book soon to explode on the big screen, originated in Canada, when author William Kotzwinkle told his friend Glenn Murray a story about a dog whose flatulence was so objectionable it once cleared out an entire stationery store in Fredericton.
The malodorous mutt, the main character in the series of children’s books co-authored by the pair, will be featured in a new Fox Studios film, starring the Jonas Brothers, slated to begin production next year.
“It has been amazing,” Murray, of New Brunswick, said of the Walter phenomenon in an interview with the Canadian Press. Since it was published in 2001, the book and its four sequels have sold millions of copies worldwide.
Murray says the stories grew out of tale that Kotzwinkle once told about meeting a dog in the 1970s whose farts were especially malodorous. He still can’t believe that a story about a chronically flatulent dog could become such a media sensation.
“It seems to me the post-9-11 world needed some innocent laughs,” he said. “It’s like the world needed a farting dog.”
The Walter books are more than bathroom humor. Instead the focus is on how Walter always manages to transform his embarrassing flaw into a virtue. Murray says he has heard many stories about children who have laughed their way through the book while facing terminal illnesses and other personal tragedies.
Of farting, Murray says. “Science tells us we all do it 17 to 23 times a day. … Everyone can connect with it on a certain level.” He once spent 90 minutes on a radio call-in show talking about dogs that pass wind.
The books, illustrated by Audrey Coleman, have been translated into at least 16 languages.
Bo, America’s Commander in Leash
This has got to be some kind of record — the day after the dog arrived at the White House, the first “Bo book” is already on the market.
“Bo, America’s Commander in Leash,” published by Mascot Books in Herndon, Va., is the first children’s book “starring the most famous dog in the world,” according to the publisher’s website.
“Join Bo on an exciting adventure as he learns all about the White House and experiences the traditions that make it such a special place. Bo’s adventures include time-honored White House traditions, including the Easter egg roll, Fourth of July fireworks on the National Mall, the pardoning of the Thanksgiving turkey, and all the festivities associated with holiday time at the White House.”
In other words, it’s a book about the White House into which Bo is being quickly inserted in hopes of capitalizing on the bad case of Bo fever we all seem to have.
Mascot is small independent publisher in Herndon, Va., that specializes in producing titles based on university and school mascots. The book is written from Bo’s point of view. Here’s an excerpt:
One day I was feeling a little mischevious and decided to swipe the Presidential letter opener from the President’s desk. Always a good sport, President Obama played along with my antics and chased me around the room, calling “Give me that back, Bo!” I was afraid that I might end up in the Presidential doghouse after this stunt.
What Color is Your Dog?
Dog trainer Joel Silverman’s brought his road show to Columbia, Maryland last night, where he took some jabs at TV trainers who see dominating a dog as a cure-all for behavior problems.
“When people talk about being the leader right off the bat, you’ve just opened the door to jeopardizing your relationship with your animal,” Silverman told a crowd at Camp Bow Wow in Columbia.
How a dog is trained should be tailored to the dog’s personality, Silverman maintains, and trying to dominate a new dog in the first 30 days — before you’ve earned its trust — can easily backfire.
Silverman’s appearance was part of a tour to promote his book, released this summer, “What Color is Your Dog? ”
While Silverman’s dog, Foster, stole the show — that’s him above delivering a letter to the mailbox — the Hollywood dog trainer and author stressed that getting to know a new dog and establishing a trusting relationship is the key to good training.
In “What Color is Your Dog?” Silverman breaks canine personalities into five groups — red (off the wall), orange (high strung), yellow (mellow), green (timid) and blue (overly fearful). One type of training, he says, does not fit all. “All dogs are different,” he noted. “What works with one won’t work with the other.”
Silverman is a career animal trainer, having started at Sea World in San Diego, where he trained dolphins, sea lions and killer whales. He worked for more than 25 years training animals for movies, TV shows and commercials. He was host, of ”Good Dog U” on Animal Planet.
Silverman said 90 percent of dogs fall into the orange, yellow and green ranges of his color spectrum. About 5 percentof dogs can be classified as red, and 5 percent as blue.
Dogs in the blue and green categories need to be motivated, while those in the red and orange range need to be calmed down.
The goal is to move the dog through training practices individualized for each type of dog and reach the middle (yellow) level.
Silverman and Foster are traveling the country in a large bus for the book tour, to which he’s added stops at pet expos, dog training centers and doggie day care facilities. He said he and his dog have traveled 20,000 miles since March, visiting 60 cities.
A Big Little Life
Dean Koontz, who churns out books faster than Land O’Lakes makes butter, released his newest last month — an ode to his deceased dog, Trixie.
“A Big Little Life” is a memoir of the life and death of his golden retriever — and, the author is quick to point out, not another “Marley & Me.”
“As the reader must now realize, this is not going to be a memoir about a pillow-destroying, cat-chasing, furniture-chewing miscreant kind of canine…”
Quite the opposite. Trixie was a trained service dog with Canine Companions for Independence (CCI), a charitable organization that provides service dogs for people with disabilities — and a group to which Koontz has donated more than $2.5 million. CCI gave the dog to Koontz as a gift.
Koontz, who has sold more than 375 million books in his lifetime, was taken with the charity while he was researching his novel “Midnight,” a book which included a CCI-trained dog.
Koontz wrote three books under Trixie’s name, “Life Is Good: Lessons in Joyful Living,” “Bliss to You: Trixie’s Guide to a Happy Life,” and “Christmas is Good.” The royalties of the books were donated to Canine Companions for Independence.
Trixie contracted cancer in 2007. The Koontzes had her put to sleep outside of their family home on June 30 of that year.
Dogs are a recurring theme in Koontz’s big fat body of work. It is “widely thought,” according to Wikipedia, that Trixie was his inspiration for his November 2007 book “The Darkest Evening of the Year,” about a woman who runs a golden retriever rescue home, and who rescues a ’special’ dog, named Nickie, who eventually saves her life.
Koontz now has a new dog, Anna, who is a grandniece of Trixie.
