front cover of All Creatures Safe and Sound
All Creatures Safe and Sound
The Social Landscape of Pets in Disasters
Sarah E. DeYoung and Ashley K. Farmer
Temple University Press, 2021

Some of the most striking news stories from natural disasters are of animals tied to trees or cats swimming through murky flood waters. Although the issue of evacuating pets has gained more attention in recent disasters, there are still many failures throughout local and national systems of managing pets and accommodating animals in emergencies.

All Creatures Safe and Sound is a comprehensive study of what goes wrong in our disaster response that shows how people can better manage pets in emergencies—from the household level to the large-scale, national level. Authors Sarah DeYoung and Ashley Farmer offer practical disaster preparedness tips while they address the social complexities that affect disaster management and animal rescue. They track the developments in the management of pets since Hurricane Katrina, including an analysis of the 2006 PETS Act, which dictates that animals should be included in hazard and disaster planning. Other chapters focus on policies in place for sheltering and evacuation, coalitions for animal welfare and the prevention of animal cruelty, organizational coordination, decision-making, preparedness, the role of social media in animal rescue and response, and how privilege and power shape disaster experiences and outcomes.  

Using data they collected from seven major recent American disasters, ranging from Hurricanes Harvey, Irma, and Florence to the Camp, Tubbs, and Carr Fires in California and the Hawaii Lava Flow, the authors provide insights about the successes and failures of animal care. All Creatures Safe and Sound also outlines what still needs to change to best prepare for the safety and welfare of pets, livestock, and other companion animals in times of crisis.

[more]

front cover of Among the Aspen
Among the Aspen
Northwoods Grouse and Woodcock Hunting
Mark Parman
University of Wisconsin Press, 2018
Following his English setters into thickets in search of grouse and woodcock, Mark Parman feels the pull of older ways and lost wisdom. How rare it is, in our high-tech world, to find oneself completely off the track, bewildered in the wild, and then find the path home by sight and scent and memory.

Among the Aspen interweaves tales of companionable dogs, lucky hunts, and favorite coverts where quarry lurks with ruminations on the demise of hunting traditions, the sale of public lands and the privatization of places to hunt, the growing indifference to science, and the loss of wilderness on a planet increasingly transformed by the sprawl of humanity.
[more]

front cover of Animals' Best Friends
Animals' Best Friends
Putting Compassion to Work for Animals in Captivity and in the Wild
Barbara J. King
University of Chicago Press, 2021
“King’s Animals’ Best Friends is the most comprehensive exploration I’ve read of the complex relationship between the human and nonhuman, full of great insights and practical information.”—Jeff VanderMeer, New York Times Book Review, “By the Book”

Finalist for the 2021 Siskiyou Prize for New Environmental Literature

As people come to understand more about animals’ inner lives—the intricacies of their thoughts and the emotions that are expressed every day by whales and cows, octopus and mice, even bees—we feel a growing compassion, a desire to better their lives. But how do we translate this compassion into helping other creatures, both those that are and are not our pets? Bringing together the latest science with heartfelt storytelling, Animals’ Best Friends reveals the opportunities we have in everyday life to help animals in our homes, in the wild, in zoos, and in science labs, as well as those considered to be food.

Barbara J. King, an expert on animal cognition and emotion, guides us on a journey both animal and deeply human. We meet cows living relaxed lives in an animal sanctuary—and cows with plastic portals in their sides at a university research station. We observe bison free-roaming at Yellowstone National Park and chimpanzees confined to zoos. We learn with King how to negotiate vegetarian preferences in omnivore restaurants. We experience the touch of a giant Pacific octopus tasting King’s skin with one of his long, neuron-rich arms. We reflect on animal testing as King shares her own experience as the survivor of a particularly nasty cancer. And in a moment all too familiar to many of us, we recover from a close encounter with two spiders in the home.

This is a book not of shaming and limitation, but of uplift and expansion. Throughout this journey, King makes no claims of personal perfection. Though an animal expert, she is just like the rest of us: on a journey still, learning each day how to be better, and do better, for animals. But as Animals’ Best Friends makes clear, challenging choices can bring deep rewards. By turning compassion into action on behalf of animals, we not only improve animals’ lives—we also immeasurably enrich our own.
[more]

front cover of Blue Juice
Blue Juice
Euthanasia in Veterinary Medicine
Patricia Morris
Temple University Press, 2012

Offering a candid behind-the-scenes look at small-animal veterinary practices, Blue Juice explores the emotional and ethical conflicts involved in providing a "good death" for companion animals. Patricia Morris presents a nuanced ethnographic account of how veterinarians manage patient care and client relations when their responsibility shifts from saving an animal's life to negotiating a decision to end it.

Using her own experiences and observations in veterinary settings as well as the voices of seasoned and novice vets, Morris reveals how veterinarians think about euthanasia and why this "dirty work" often precipitates "burnout," moral quandaries, and even tense or emotional interactions with clients. Closely observing these interactions, Morris illuminates the ways in which euthanasia reflects deep and unresolved tension in human-animal relationships.

Blue Juice seeks to understand how practitioners, charged with the difficult task of balancing the interests of animals and their humans, deal with the responsibility of ending their patients' lives.

[more]

logo for Rutgers University Press
The Bravest Pets of Gotham
Tales of Four-Legged Firefighters of Old New York
Peggy Gavan
Rutgers University Press, 2024
In the late 1800s and early 1900s, the Fire Department of the City of New York permitted firemen to keep one dog, one cat, or singing birds in their firehouse. These animals, in addition to the horses that pulled the apparatus, provided companionship for the men, who were required to work and live at their firehouses for weeks at a time with only a few hours off for meals and family time. Many fire companies in Old New York broke the rules and welcomed multiple mascots into their firehouses. Some companies also had unique firehouse pets, such as monkeys, goats, and turtles.
 
The Bravest Pets of Gotham will take readers on a fun historical tour of the FDNY and firefighting in New York City via more than 100 amazing, emotive, and oftentimes hilariously absurd stories of the FDNY horses and mascots whose acts of bravery, extraordinary intelligence, and funny antics deserve to be told and preserved.
[more]

front cover of Canine Confidential
Canine Confidential
Why Dogs Do What They Do
Marc Bekoff
University of Chicago Press, 2018
For all the love and attention we give dogs,  much of what they do remains mysterious. Just think about different behaviors you see at a dog park: We have a good understanding of what it means when dogs wag their tails—but what about when they sniff and roll on a stinky spot? Why do they play tug-of-war with one dog, while showing their bellies to another? Why are some dogs shy, while others are bold? What goes on in dogs’ heads and hearts—and how much can we know and understand?
 
Canine Confidential has the answers. Written by award-winning scientist—and lifelong dog lover—Marc Bekoff, it not only brilliantly opens up the world of dog behavior, but also helps us understand how we can make our dogs’ lives the best they can possibly be.  Rooted in the most up-to-date science on cognition and emotion—fields that have exploded in recent years—Canine Confidential is a wonderfully accessible treasure trove of new information and myth-busting. Peeing, we learn, isn’t always marking; grass-eating isn’t always an attempt to trigger vomiting; it’s okay to hug a dog—on their terms; and so much more. There’s still much we don’t know, but at the core of the book is the certainty that dogs do have deep emotional lives, and that as their companions we must try to make those lives as rich and fulfilling as possible. It’s also clear that we must look at dogs as unique individuals and refrain from talking about “the dog.”
 
Bekoff also considers the practical importance of knowing details about dog behavior. He advocates strongly for positive training—there’s no need to dominate or shame dogs or to make them live in fear—and the detailed information contained in Canine Confidential has a good deal of significance for dog trainers and teachers. He also suggests that trainers should watch and study dogs in various contexts outside of those in which they are dealing with clients, canine and human, with specific needs. 
 
There’s nothing in the world as heartwarming as being greeted by your dog at the end of the workday. Read Canine Confidential, and you’ll be on the road to making your shared lives as happy, healthy, and rewarding as they can possibly be.
[more]

front cover of The Cat Men of Gotham
The Cat Men of Gotham
Tales of Feline Friendships in Old New York
Peggy Gavan
Rutgers University Press, 2019
Winner of the 2019 Certificate of Excellence and MUSE Medallion from the Cat Writers Association

The nineteenth century was a rough time to be a stray cat in New York City. The city’s human residents dealt with feline overpopulation by gassing unwanted cats or tossing them in rivers. But a few lucky strays were found by a diverse array of men—including firemen, cops, athletes, and politicians—who rescued them from the streets and welcomed them into their homes and hearts.
 
This book tells the stories of these heroic cat men of Gotham and their beloved feline companions. Not only does it introduce us to some remarkable men, but we get to meet many extraordinary cats as well, from Chinese stowaways prowling the Chelsea Piers to the sole feline survivor of the USS Maine explosion. Among the forty-two profiles, we find many feline Cinderella stories, as humble alley cats achieved renown as sports team mascots, artists’ muses, and even presidential pets.
 
Sure to appeal to cat fanciers and history fans alike, The Cat Men of Gotham will give you a new appreciation for Old New York and the people and animals who made it their home. As it takes you on a journey through the streets of Manhattan and Brooklyn, it will amuse and astound you with tales of powerful men and their pussycats.
[more]

front cover of Cavalry
Cavalry
Its History and Tactics
Louis Edward Nolan
Westholme Publishing, 2020
First published in 1853, Cavalry: Its History and Tactics had a major impact on military theorists and officers for decades—it was reprinted as a manual during the American Civil War—and its influence on European cavalry performance can be traced into World War I. It is an intelligent work which discusses the history and development of cavalry over the ages, advocates a program of reform for Britain’s horsed troops, and covers many aspects of equipment, training, drill, organization, formation, and battlefield tactics. The author, an experienced and gifted cavalryman, first served in the Austrian army, then joined the British army’s 15th Hussars in 1839, fought in India, and became the regimental riding master. Captain Nolan’s 1852 tour of European armies, wide reading in many languages, and service in Europe and India makes Cavalry an extraordinary statement on mid-nineteenth-century theory and practice.
As historian Jon Coulston explains in his introduction, Nolan was writing at the cusp of technological change, drawing upon the experiences of the Napoleonic Wars, continental suppression of the 1848 Revolutions, and Britain’s wars in India, but with an eye to firepower developments on the eve of the Crimean War. In 1854, at the Battle of Balaklava, Nolan rode with the written order which unleashed the Charge of the Light Brigade, an action in which he lost his life. Presented here as the first modern reprint, complete with a new introduction and further reading, Nolan’s Cavalry remains a hallmark of military history.
[more]

front cover of Cinematic Canines
Cinematic Canines
Dogs and Their Work in the Fiction Film
McLean, Adrienne L
Rutgers University Press, 2014
Dogs have been part of motion pictures since the movies began. They have been featured onscreen in various capacities, from any number of “man’s best friends” (Rin Tin Tin, Asta, Toto, Lassie, Benji, Uggie, and many, many more) to the psychotic Cujo. The contributors to Cinematic Canines take a close look at Hollywood films and beyond in order to show that the popularity of dogs on the screen cannot be separated from their increasing presence in our lives over the past century.

The representation and visualization of dogs in cinema, as of other animals, has influenced our understanding of what dogs “should” do and be, for us and with us. Adrienne L. McLean expertly shepherds these original essays into a coherent look at “real” dogs in live-action narrative films, from the stars and featured players to the character and supporting actors to those pooches that assumed bit parts or performed as extras. Who were those dogs, how were they trained, what were they made to do, how did they participate as characters in a fictional universe? These are a just a few of the many questions that she and the outstanding group of scholars in this book have addressed.

Often dogs are anthropomorphized in movies in ways that enable them to reason, sympathize, understand and even talk; and our shaping of dogs into furry humans has had profound effects on the lives of dogs off the screen. Certain breeds of dog have risen in popularity following their appearance in commercial film, often to the detriment of the dogs themselves, who rarely correspond to their idealized screen versions. In essence, the contributors in Cinematic Canines help us think about and understand the meanings of the many canines that appear in the movies and, in turn, we want to know more about those dogs due in no small part to the power of the movies themselves.
[more]

front cover of The Companion Species Manifesto
The Companion Species Manifesto
Dogs, People, and Significant Otherness
Donna J. Haraway
Prickly Paradigm Press, 2003
The Companion Species Manifesto is about the implosion of nature and culture in the joint lives of dogs and people, who are bonded in "significant otherness." In all their historical complexity, Donna Haraway tells us, dogs matter. They are not just surrogates for theory, she says; they are not here just to think with. Neither are they just an alibi for other themes; dogs are fleshly material-semiotic presences in the body of technoscience. They are here to live with. Partners in the crime of human evolution, they are in the garden from the get-go, wily as Coyote. This pamphlet is Haraway's answer to her own Cyborg Manifesto, where the slogan for living on the edge of global war has to be not just "cyborgs for earthly survival" but also, in a more doggish idiom, "shut up and train."
[more]

front cover of The Difficulty of Being a Dog
The Difficulty of Being a Dog
Roger Grenier
University of Chicago Press, 2000
The forty-three lovingly crafted vignettes within The Difficulty of Being a Dog dig elegantly to the center of a long, mysterious, and often intense relationship: that between human beings and dogs. In doing so, Roger Grenier introduces us to dogs real and literary, famous and reviled—from Ulysses's Argos to Freud's Lün to the hundreds of dogs exiled from Constantinople in 1910 and deposited on a desert island—and gives us a sense of what makes our relationships with them so meaningful.
[more]

front cover of A Dog Lover's Guide to Hiking Wisconsin's State Parks
A Dog Lover's Guide to Hiking Wisconsin's State Parks
Danielle St. Louis
University of Wisconsin Press, 2022
Danielle St. Louis and her energetic Labrador-border collie rescue dog, Lucky, have hiked every Wisconsin state park together. While doing so, they enjoyed the state’s rich natural beauty and the challenges that can come from hiking with a canine companion. St. Louis documents it all in this fun and thorough guide.
 
A Dog Lover’s Guide to Hiking Wisconsin’s State Parks divides Wisconsin into five regions and further details specific trails, graded for dog reactivity as well as the fitness level of human and canine alike. St. Louis also helpfully notes the availability of nearby facilities such as bathrooms, water stations, trashcans, designated dog swimming areas, and veterinarians. Truly one of a kind, this book is a must have for any Wisconsin dog lover looking to go out into nature with their pup.
[more]

front cover of Dogopolis
Dogopolis
How Dogs and Humans Made Modern New York, London, and Paris
Chris Pearson
University of Chicago Press, 2021
Dogopolis presents a surprising source for urban innovation in the history of three major cities: human-canine relationships.
 
Stroll through any American or European city today and you probably won’t get far before seeing a dog being taken for a walk. It’s expected that these domesticated animals can easily navigate sidewalks, streets, and other foundational elements of our built environment. But what if our cities were actually shaped in response to dogs more than we ever realized?

Chris Pearson’s Dogopolis boldly and convincingly asserts that human-canine relations were a crucial factor in the formation of modern urban living. Focusing on New York, London, and Paris from the early nineteenth century into the 1930s, Pearson shows that human reactions to dogs significantly remolded them and other contemporary western cities. It’s an unalterable fact that dogs—often filthy, bellicose, and sometimes off-putting—run away, spread rabies, defecate, and breed wherever they like, so as dogs became a more and more common in nineteenth-century middle-class life, cities had to respond to people’s fear of them and revulsion at their least desirable traits. The gradual integration of dogs into city life centered on disgust at dirt, fear of crime and vagrancy, and the promotion of humanitarian sentiments. On the other hand, dogs are some people’s most beloved animal companions, and human compassion and affection for pets and strays were equally powerful forces in shaping urban modernity. Dogopolis details the complex interrelations among emotions, sentiment, and the ways we manifest our feelings toward what we love—showing that together they can actually reshape society.
 
[more]

front cover of Dogs
Dogs
A New Understanding of Canine Origin, Behavior and Evolution
Raymond Coppinger and Lorna Coppinger
University of Chicago Press, 2002
Biologists, breeders and trainers, and champion sled dog racers, Raymond and Lorna Coppinger have more than four decades of experience with literally thousands of dogs. Offering a scientifically informed perspective on canines and their relations with humans, the Coppingers take a close look at eight different types of dogs—household, village, livestock guarding, herding, sled-pulling, pointing, retrieving, and hound. They argue that dogs did not evolve directly from wolves, nor were they trained by early humans; instead they domesticated themselves to exploit a new ecological niche: Mesolithic village dumps. Tracing the evolution of today's breeds from these village dogs, the Coppingers show how characteristic shapes and behaviors—from pointing and baying to the sleek shapes of running dogs—arise from both genetic heritage and the environments in which pups are raised.

For both dogs and humans to get the most out of each other, we need to understand and adapt to the biological needs and dispositions of our canine companions, just as they have to ours.
[more]

front cover of Dog's Best Friend
Dog's Best Friend
Annals of the Dog-Human Relationship
Mark Derr
University of Chicago Press, 2004
A comprehensive, humane, and bemused tour of the dog-human relationship, Dog's Best Friend combines anecdote, research, and reportage to illuminate our complex rapport with our cherished canine companions. Tracking our national obsession with an animal that now outnumbers children in American households, Mark Derr chronicles the evolution of "the culture of the dog" from the prehistoric domestication of tamed wolves to the modern horrors of overbreeding and inbreeding.

Passionate about his subject and intent on sharing his zeal, Derr defends dogs with wit and flare, producing here a quirky, informative, and fitting tribute to our love affair with canines big and small.
[more]

front cover of Domestic Architecture, Ethnicity, and Complementarity in the  South-Central Andes
Domestic Architecture, Ethnicity, and Complementarity in the South-Central Andes
Mark S. Aldenderfer
University of Iowa Press, 1993
Domestic Architecture, Ethnicity, and Complementarity in the South-Central Andes is a comprehensive and challenging look at the burgeoning field of Andean domestic architecture. Aldenderfer and fourteen contributors use domestic architecture to explore two major topics in the prehistory of the south-central Andes: the development of different forms of complementary relationships between highland and lowland peoples and the definition of the ethnic affiliations of these peoples.
[more]

logo for University of Chicago Press
East African Mammals
An Atlas of Evolution in Africa, Volume 2, Part B: Hares and Rodents
Jonathan Kingdon
University of Chicago Press, 1984
Acclaimed and coveted by both naturalists and lovers of wildlife illustration, Jonathan Kingdon's seven-volume East African Mammals has become a classic of modern natural history. This paperback edition makes Kingdon's remarkable artistic and scientific achievement—his hundreds of drawings and perceptive study of all the mammals in East Africa's species-rich fauna—available to the wide audience it deserves. 

Volume IIB of East African Mammals is a study of some of  East Africa's smallest and least conspicuous mammals, hares and rodents.

In each volume Kingdon combines his text with hundreds of finished drawings and quick sketches, the latter a form of field note that provides an incomparable description of the animal's movements and personality. Kingdom explains his drawings "as a wordless questioning of form. . . . The probing pencil is like the dissecting scalpel, seeking to expose relevant structures that may not be immediately obvious and are certainly hidden from the shadowy world of the camera lens." As an artist, Kingdon's achievement has been compared with Audubon's; as a scientist, his work has made these volumes indispensable to any serious student of East African mammals.
[more]

logo for University of Chicago Press
East African Mammals
An Atlas of Evolution in Africa, Volume 3, Part A: Carnivores
Jonathan Kingdon
University of Chicago Press, 1989
Acclaimed and coveted by both naturalists and lovers of wildlife illustration, Jonathan Kingdon's seven-volume East African Mammals has become a classic of modern natural history. This paperback edition makes Kingdon's remarkable artistic and scientific achievement—his hundreds of drawings and perceptive study of all the mammals in East Africa's species-rich fauna—available to the wide audience it deserves.

Volume IIIA documents the carnivores of East Africa—lions, cheetahs, jackals, otters, civets, genets, mongooses, hyenas, and such lesser-known species as the zorilla and the aardwolf.

The beauty of the animals, so vivid in these incomparable drawings, is made more poignant by the acknowledgment of their increasingly endangered status. Kingdon discusses the inevitable problems posed by large mammal communities in a developing continent and includes numerous maps indicating their declining ranges and populations.
[more]

logo for University of Chicago Press
East African Mammals
An Atlas of Evolution in Africa, Volume 3, Part B: Large Mammals
Jonathan Kingdon
University of Chicago Press, 1989
Acclaimed and coveted by both naturalists and lovers of wildlife illustration, Jonathan Kingdon's seven-volume East African Mammals has become a classic of modern natural history. This paperback edition makes Kingdon's remarkable artistic and scientific achievement—his hundreds of drawings and perceptive study of all the mammals in East Africa's species-rich fauna—available to the wide audience it deserves.

Volume IIIB celebrates the large mammals for which the African plains are so famous—elephants, rhinos, zebras, bushpigs, and warthogs, hippopotamuses, camels, chevrotains, giraffes. Kingdon brings his artist's eye to such puzzles as the zebra's stripes and the giraffe's spots, making original observations throughout the seven volumes about the evolutionary and functional significance of coat color, facial expressions, and curious forms and markings.

The beauty of the animals, so vivid in these incomparable drawings, is made more poignant by the acknowledgment of their increasingly endangered status. Kingdon discusses the inevitable problems posed by large mammal communities in a developing continent and includes numerous maps indicating their declining ranges and populations.
[more]

front cover of East African Mammals
East African Mammals
An Atlas of Evolution in Africa, Volume 3, Part D: Bovids
Jonathan Kingdon
University of Chicago Press, 1989
Kingdon's remarkable seven-volume masterwork on East African mammals concludes with two volumes on the bovids, placing them in a broad comparative, ecological, and evolutionary context. Volume IIIC covers cattle, water buffalo, kudus, elands, dwarf antelopes, duikers, reedbucks, and waterbucks; IIID covers gazelles, impalas, wildebeests, oryxes, sheep, and goats. In addition to the stunning, lifelike drawings that are an integral part of the text, the volumes include a reappraisal of bovid taxonomy and original analyses of the form and function of body shape and size, horn shape, coat pattern, and tooth structure.
[more]

front cover of Fe-Lines
Fe-Lines
French Cat Poems through the Ages
Collected and Translated by Norman Shapiro
University of Illinois Press, 2015
The French have long had a love affair with the cat, expressed through centuries of poetry portraying the animal's wit and wonder.

Norman R. Shapiro lionizes the feline's limitless allure in this one-of-a-kind collection. Spanning centuries and styles, he draws on she-cats and toms, and an honor roll of French poets, well known and lesser known, who have served as their devoted champions. He reveals the remarkable range of French cat poems, with most works presented here for the first time in English translation. Scrupulously devoted to evoking the meaning and music of the originals, Shapiro also respects the works' formal structures. Pairing Shapiro's translations with Olga Pastuchiv's elegant illustrations, Fe-Lines guides the reader through the marvels and inscrutabilities of the Mystique féline.

[more]

front cover of Filling the Ark
Filling the Ark
Animal Welfare in Disasters
Leslie Irvine
Temple University Press, 2009

With a new Preface by the author

When disasters strike, people are not the only victims. Hurricane Katrina raised public attention about how disasters affect dogs, cats, and other animals considered members of the human family. In this short but powerful book, now available in paperback, noted sociologist Leslie Irvine goes beyond Katrina to examine how oil spills, fires, and other calamities affect various animal populations—on factory farms, in research facilities, and in the wild.

In a new preface, Irvine surveys the state of animal welfare in disasters since the first edition. Filling the Ark argues that humans cause most of the risks faced by animals and urges for better decisions about the treatment of animals in disasters. Furthermore, it makes a broad appeal for the ethical necessity of better planning to keep animals out of jeopardy. Irvine not only offers policy recommendations and practical advice for evacuating animals, she also makes a strong case for rethinking our use of animals, suggesting ways to create more secure conditions. 

[more]

front cover of Fred in Love
Fred in Love
Felice Picano
University of Wisconsin Press, 2005
    In the early 1970s, when he was still an aspiring, unpublished writer, Felice Picano began a remarkable relationship with an extraordinary animal: a days-old kitten slated for euthanasia who refused to perish.  Rescued, named, and trained, Fred became an extraordinarily intelligent companion, ally, teacher, and constant wonder to the author as he began his ascent through the Bohemian circles of Greenwich Village, among musicians, actors, curious characters, and even the famous British actress in hiding right next door.
    But when an acquaintance brought his female cat to be serviced by Fred, an entire new set of experiences opened up for the cat-and for Picano, who'd never had the nerve to befriend her owner, his ideal man.  The course of love seldom runs straight for cats or for men, and this time would prove (hilariously) no different.
    This is another of Picano's distinguished portraits of a vanished era, when a new gay domain was solidifying only a few years after the Stonewall Riots, and the still nascent gay literary world that Picano would help invent was just a conception. Fred in Love is a charming, nostalgic, funny, gossipy, involving, and ultimately enlightening story about how we learn and grow, and how we love-whether the object of our affection is a cat or another human being.  It's sure to take its place next to Picano's now classic literary memoirs Ambidextrous, Men Who Loved Me, and A House on the Ocean, a House on the Bay.
[more]

front cover of From Property to Family
From Property to Family
American Dog Rescue and the Discourse of Compassion
Andrei S. Markovits and Katherine N. Crosby
University of Michigan Press, 2014
In the wake of the considerable cultural changes and social shifts that the United States and all advanced industrial democracies have experienced since the late 1960s and early 1970s, social discourse around the disempowered has changed in demonstrable ways. In From Property to Family: American Dog Rescue and the Discourse of Compassion, Andrei Markovits and Katherine Crosby describe a “discourse of compassion” that actually alters the way we treat persons and ideas once scorned by the social mainstream. This “culture turn” has also affected our treatment of animals inaugurating an accompanying “animal turn”. In the case of dogs, this shift has increasingly transformed the discursive category of the animal from human companion to human family member. One of the new institutions created by this attitudinal and behavioral change towards dogs has been the breed specific canine rescue organization, examples of which have arisen all over the United States beginning in the early 1980s and massively proliferating in the 1990s and subsequent years.  While the growing scholarship on the changed dimension of the human-animal relationship attests to its social, political, moral and intellectual salience to our contemporary world, the work presented in Markovits and Crosby’s book constitutes the first academic research on the particularly important institution of breed specific dog rescue.
[more]

front cover of Genetics and the Social Behaviour of the Dog
Genetics and the Social Behaviour of the Dog
John Paul Scott and John L. Fuller
University of Chicago Press, 1974
The classic study of dog behavior gathered into one volume. Based on twenty years of research at the Jackson Laboratory, this is the single most important and comprehensive reference work on the behavior of dogs ever complied.

"Genetics and the Social Behavior of the Dog is one of the most important texts on canine behavior published to date. Anyone interested in breeding, training, or canine behavior must own this book."—Wayne Hunthausen, D.V.M., Director of Animal Behavior Consultations

"This pioneering research on dog behavioral genetics is a timeless classic for all serious students of ethology and canine behavior."—Dr. Michael Fox, Senior Advisor to the President, The Humane Society of the United States

"A major authoritative work. . . . Immensely rewarding reading for anyone concerned with dog-breeding."—Times Literary Supplement

"The last comprehensive study [of dog behavior] was concluded more than thirty years ago, when John Paul Scott and John L. Fuller published their seminal work Genetics and the Social Behavior of the Dog."—Mark Derr, The Atlantic Monthly

"Genetics and the Social Behavior of the Dog is essential reading for anyone involved in the breeding of dogs. No breeder can afford to ignore the principles of proper socialization first discovered and articulated in this landmark study."-The Monks of New Skete, authors of How to Be Your Dog's Best Friend and the video series Raising Your Dog with the Monks of New Skete.
[more]

front cover of The Giant Pandas of Wolong
The Giant Pandas of Wolong
George B. Schaller, Hu Jinchu, Pan Wenshi, and Zhu Jing
University of Chicago Press, 1985
The giant panda is threatened with extinction. Only about a thousand survive in the wild in China, about half of them protected in reserves. In an effort to save this remarkable species, the government of China and the World Wildlife Fund began cooperative research in 1980. The Giant Pandas of Wolong is not only the first report of this joint venture but also the first detailed account of the panda's natural history. It describes the environment, distribution, life cycle, and daily and seasonal activities of pandas in the wild.

Although giant pandas have few natural enemies, the periodic die-off of bamboo, their main food, threatens their survival. In order to understand the panda's vital link to bamboo, the research team has explored many aspects of the animal's life, collecting information on both wild and captive pandas. Though a herbivore, the panda retains the simple digestive tract of a carnivore. Unable to digest cellulose in plants, it receives relatively little nutrition from the bamboo it eats. As a result, it must eat many kilograms of bamboo each day, foraging for fourteen hours or more throughout a day and night.

Known to the Chinese for several thousand years as daxiongmao, "large bear-cat," the giant panda has defied easy classification. The authors review anatomical, biochemical, behavioral, and paleontological evidence, concluding that the animal is neither bear nor raccoon but belongs in a separate family, perhaps with the small red panda.

The giant panda has captured the imagination of the public more than any other animal. By presenting their groundbreaking and crucial research to the public, the authors of The Giant Pandas of Wolong hope to spur further research and action that will help this precious animal survive.
[more]

front cover of The Great Cat and Dog Massacre
The Great Cat and Dog Massacre
The Real Story of World War Two's Unknown Tragedy
Hilda Kean
University of Chicago Press, 2017
The tragedies of World War II are well known. But at least one has been forgotten: in September 1939, four hundred thousand cats and dogs were massacred in Britain. The government, vets, and animal charities all advised against this killing. So why would thousands of British citizens line up to voluntarily euthanize household pets?

In The Great Cat and Dog Massacre, Hilda Kean unearths the history, piecing together the compelling story of the life—and death—of Britain’s wartime animal companions. She explains that fear of imminent Nazi bombing and the desire to do something to prepare for war led Britons to sew blackout curtains, dig up flower beds for vegetable patches, send their children away to the countryside—and kill the family pet, in theory sparing them the suffering of a bombing raid. Kean’s narrative is gripping, unfolding through stories of shared experiences of bombing, food restrictions, sheltering, and mutual support. Soon pets became key to the war effort, providing emotional assistance and helping people to survive—a contribution for which the animals gained government recognition.

Drawing extensively on new research from animal charities, state archives, diaries, and family stories, Kean does more than tell a virtually forgotten story. She complicates our understanding of World War II as a “good war” fought by a nation of “good” people. Accessibly written and generously illustrated, Kean’s account of this forgotten aspect of British history moves animals to center stage—forcing us to rethink our assumptions about ourselves and the animals with whom we share our homes.
 
[more]

front cover of A Grouse Hunter’s Almanac
A Grouse Hunter’s Almanac
The Other Kind of Hunting
Mark Parman
University of Wisconsin Press, 2017
Like that earlier grouse hunter Aldo Leopold, Mark Parman takes to the woods when the aspens are smoky gold. Here, in an evocative almanac that chronicles the early season of the grouse hunt through its end in the snows of January, Parman follows his dog through the changing trees and foliage, thrills to the sudden flush of beating wings, and holds a bird in hand, thankful for the meal it will provide. Distilling twenty seasons of grouse hunting into these essays, he writes of old dogs and gun lust, cover and clear cutting, climate change, companions male and female, wildlife art, and stumps. A Grouse Hunter's Almanac delves into the mind of a hunter, exploring the Northwoods with an eye for more than just game.

"Notable and quotable. Parman stakes out original territory and provides a vivid snapshot of the Northwoods."—John Motoviloff, author of Wisconsin Wildfoods: 100 Recipes for Badger State Bounties

"Extremely rich and detailed. Parman puts forth original and genuine experiences."—Richard Yatzeck, author of Hunting the Edges

[more]

front cover of Happy Tails Across New Jersey
Happy Tails Across New Jersey
Things to See and Do with Your Dog in the Garden State
Goodspeed, Diane
Rutgers University Press, 2006
Are you among the thousands of dog owners in the Garden State who would like to spend more time with your four-footed companion? Now you can!

In this first-of-its-kind guidebook, Diane Goodspeed brings the encouraging news to pet lovers that their furry friends are welcome to many of New Jersey's beaches, trails, parks, swim holes, and even stores. Whether you are hiking in the Kittatinny Mountains, going for a run on the beach, or playing fetch along the Delaware River, you and your dog can explore New Jersey together. From transportation and equipment to basic obedience and fitness conditioning, this guide contains all the information you need to get your dog out the door for exciting adventures in every season.

Organized by county for easy reference, you will find information about county, state, and national parks that will welcome your canine companion. The book also functions as a convenient handbook for shops, covering everything from high-end pet stores and large chains to independently run dog bakeries. Goodspeed identifies training facilities, the most reputable and well-established dog trainers, as well as shelters, rescue centers, and every dog park across the state. Whether you are a long-time dog owner, or new to the canine scene, you will be surprised by how many dog-friendly events, including walk-a-thons, fairs, canine sporting competitions, town festivals, dog parades, and fundraising events for rescue groups occur annually throughout New Jersey.

Finally, with your leash in one hand and this indispensable and all-inclusive guide in the other, you can enjoy the exciting recreational opportunities available in the Garden State with your favorite four-legged friend.

[more]

front cover of How Animals Grieve
How Animals Grieve
Barbara J. King
University of Chicago Press, 2013
From the time of our earliest childhood encounters with animals, we casually ascribe familiar emotions to them. But scientists have long cautioned against such anthropomorphizing, arguing that it limits our ability to truly comprehend the lives of other creatures. Recently, however, things have begun to shift in the other direction, and anthropologist Barbara J. King is at the forefront of that movement, arguing strenuously that we can—and should—attend to animal emotions. With How Animals Grieve, she draws our attention to the specific case of grief, and relates story after story—from fieldsites, farms, homes, and more—of animals mourning lost companions, mates, or friends.
 
King tells of elephants surrounding their matriarch as she weakens and dies, and, in the following days, attending to her corpse as if holding a vigil. A housecat loses her sister, from whom she's never before been parted, and spends weeks pacing the apartment, wailing plaintively. A baboon loses her daughter to a predator and sinks into grief. In each case, King uses her anthropological training to interpret and try to explain what we see—to help us understand this animal grief properly, as something neither the same as nor wholly different from the human experience of loss.
 
The resulting book is both daring and down-to-earth, strikingly ambitious even as it’s careful to acknowledge the limits of our understanding. Through the moving stories she chronicles and analyzes so beautifully, King brings us closer to the animals with whom we share a planet, and helps us see our own experiences, attachments, and emotions as part of a larger web of life, death, love, and loss.

[more]

front cover of How Dogs Work
How Dogs Work
Raymond Coppinger and Mark Feinstein
University of Chicago Press, 2015
How well do we really know dogs?  People may enjoy thinking about them as “man’s best friend,” but what actually drives the things they do? What is going on in their fur-covered heads as they look at us with their big, expressive eyes?  Raymond Coppinger and Mark Feinstein know something about these questions, and with How Dogs Work, they’re ready to share; this is their guide to understanding your dog and its behavior.
 
Approaching dogs as a biological species rather than just as pets, Coppinger and Feinstein accessibly synthesize decades of research and field experiments to explain the evolutionary foundations underlying dog behaviors. They examine the central importance of the shape of dogs:  how their physical body (including the genes and the brain) affects behavior, how shape interacts with the environment as animals grow, and how all of this has developed over time. Shape, they tell us, is what makes a champion sled dog or a Border collie that can successfully herd sheep. Other chapters in How Dogs Work explore such mysteries as why dogs play; whether dogs have minds, and if so what kinds of things they might know; why dogs bark; how dogs feed and forage; and the influence of the early relationship between mother and pup. Going far beyond the cozy lap dog, Coppinger and Feinstein are equally fascinated by what we can learn from the adaptations of dogs, wolves, coyotes, jackals, dingoes, and even pumas in the wild, as well as the behavior of working animals like guarding and herding dogs.
 
We cherish dogs as family members and deeply value our lengthy companionship with them. But, isn’t it time we knew more about who Fido and Trixie really are? How Dogs Work will provide some keys to unlocking the origins of many of our dogs' most common, most puzzling, and most endearing behaviors.
[more]

front cover of How Not to Make a Human
How Not to Make a Human
Pets, Feral Children, Worms, Sky Burial, Oysters
Karl Steel
University of Minnesota Press, 2019

From pet keeping to sky burials, a posthuman and ecocritical interrogation of and challenge to human particularity in medieval texts


Mainstream medieval thought, like much of mainstream modern thought, habitually argued that because humans alone had language, reason, and immortal souls, all other life was simply theirs for the taking. But outside this scholarly consensus teemed a host of other ways to imagine the shared worlds of humans and nonhumans. How Not to Make a Human engages with these nonsystematic practices and thought to challenge both human particularity and the notion that agency, free will, and rationality are the defining characteristics of being human.

Recuperating the Middle Ages as a lost opportunity for decentering humanity, Karl Steel provides a posthuman and ecocritical interrogation of a wide range of medieval texts. Exploring such diverse topics as medieval pet keeping, stories of feral and isolated children, the ecological implications of funeral practices, and the “bare life” of oysters from a variety of disanthropic perspectives, Steel furnishes contemporary posthumanists with overlooked cultural models to challenge human and other supremacies at their roots. 

By collecting beliefs and practices outside the mainstream of medieval thought, How Not to Make a Human connects contemporary concerns with ecology, animal life, and rethinkings of what it means to be human to uncanny materials that emphasize matters of death, violence, edibility, and vulnerability. 

[more]

front cover of The Internet Is for Cats
The Internet Is for Cats
How Animal Images Shape Our Digital Lives
Jessica Maddox
Rutgers University Press, 2023
LOL cats. Grumpy Cat. Dog-rating Twitter. Pet Instagram accounts. It’s generally understood the internet is for pictures of cute cats (and dogs, and otters, and pandas). But what motivates people to make and share these images, and how do they relate to other online social practices? 
 
The Internet is for Cats examines how animal images are employed to create a lighter, more playful mood, uniting users within online spaces that can otherwise easily become fractious and toxic. Placing today’s pet videos, photos, and memes within a longer history of mediated animal images, communication scholar Jessica Maddox also considers the factors that make them unique. She explores the roles that animals play within online economies of cuteness and attention, as well as the ways that animal memes and videos respond to common experiences of life under neoliberalism. 
 
Conducting a rich digital ethnography, Maddox combines observations and textual analysis with extensive interviews of the people who create, post and share animal media, including TikTok influencers seeking to make their pets famous, activists tweeting about wildlife conservation, and Redditors upvoting every cute cat photo. The Internet is for Cats will leave you with a new appreciation for the human social practices behind the animal images you encounter online. 
 
[more]

logo for University of Iowa Press
Iowa Breeding Bird Atlas
Laura Spess Jackson
University of Iowa Press, 1996

The Iowa Breeding Bird Atlas—the first comprehensive statewide survey of Iowa's breeding birds—provides a detailed record of the composition and distribution of the avifauna of the Hawkeye State. The atlas documents the presence of 199 species, 158 of which were confirmed breeding. This landmark volume will alert Iowans to the limited distribution of numerous species and serve as a guide to the management practices—such as forest and wetland management, set-aside programs, reduction in farm chemical use, and crop diversity—which could help insure that many future changes are positive ones. The Iowa Breeding Bird Atlas provides a welcome and much-needed baseline for future comparisons of changes in Iowa's birdlife and, by extension, the lives of all animals in the state.

[more]

front cover of The Last Walk
The Last Walk
Reflections on Our Pets at the End of Their Lives
Jessica Pierce
University of Chicago Press, 2012
From the moment when we first open our homes—and our hearts—to a new pet, we know that one day we will have to watch this beloved animal age and die. The pain of that eventual separation is the cruel corollary to the love we share with them, and most of us deal with it by simply ignoring its inevitability.
 
With The Last Walk, Jessica Pierce makes a forceful case that our pets, and the love we bear them, deserve better. Drawing on the moving story of the last year of the life of her own treasured dog, Ody, she presents an in-depth exploration of the practical, medical, and moral issues that trouble pet owners confronted with the decline and death of their companion animals. Pierce combines heart-wrenching personal stories, interviews, and scientific research to consider a wide range of questions about animal aging, end-of-life care, and death. She tackles such vexing questions as whether animals are aware of death, whether they're feeling pain, and if and when euthanasia is appropriate. Given what we know and can learn, how should we best honor the lives of our pets, both while they live and after they have left us?         

The product of a lifetime of loving pets, studying philosophy, and collaborating with scientists at the forefront of the study of animal behavior and cognition, The Last Walk asks—and answers—the toughest questions pet owners face. The result is informative, moving, and consoling in equal parts; no pet lover should miss it.
[more]

front cover of Literary Cats
Literary Cats
Judith Robinson and Scott Pack
Bodleian Library Publishing, 2022
A light-hearted journey through the history of literary cats.
 
From Puss in Boots to T. S. Eliot’s Jellicles, cats have long inspired an incredible range of fiction, memoir, and poetry. This book celebrates the connections between our favorite feline friends and the literary imagination, diving into ancient myths and fables, much-loved children’s books, classic literature, and contemporary novels.

Featuring famous fictional characters such as Lewis Carroll’s Cheshire Cat, Beatrice Potter’s Tom Kitten, and Edgar Allan Poe’s Pluto, Literary Cats explores the role of felines across literary genres. This light-hearted history also uncovers their domestication, early cultural beginnings, and religious associations. The collection also reveals the history of several real-life cats such as Bob, the famous London street cat, as well as cats belonging to authors Ernest Hemingway, Patricia Highsmith, Muriel Spark, and more. A section on cats in world literature introduces narrator cats and cat companions from Japan, Eastern Europe, France, Greece, Germany, and Finland, demonstrating their enduring worldwide appeal.
[more]

front cover of Mammals of Minnesota
Mammals of Minnesota
Evan Hazard
University of Minnesota Press, 1982
Minnesota has been the home of 81 species of mammals. This book is a comprehensive identification guide, also providing information on classification, distribution and ecology of these species. Each mammal is described in terms of size, color of fur, social and reproductive behavior, and interaction with people.
[more]

front cover of Marx for Cats
Marx for Cats
A Radical Bestiary
Leigh Claire La Berge
Duke University Press, 2023
At the outset of Marx for Cats, Leigh Claire La Berge declares that “all history is the history of cat struggle.” Revising the medieval bestiary form to meet Marxist critique, La Berge follows feline footprints through Western economic history to reveal an animality at the heart of Marxism. She draws on a twelve-hundred-year arc spanning capitalism’s feudal prehistory, its colonialist and imperialist ages, the bourgeois revolutions that supported capitalism, and the communist revolutions that opposed it to outline how cats have long been understood as creatures of economic critique and liberatory possibility. By attending to the repeated archival appearance of lions, tigers, wildcats, and “sabo-tabbies,” La Berge argues that felines are central to how Marxists have imagined the economy, and by asking what humans and animals owe each other in a moment of ecological crisis, La Berge joins current debates about the need for and possibility of eco-socialism. In this playful and generously illustrated radical bestiary, La Berge demonstrates that class struggle is ultimately an interspecies collaboration.
[more]

front cover of Melancholia's Dog
Melancholia's Dog
Reflections on Our Animal Kinship
Alice A. Kuzniar
University of Chicago Press, 2006
Bred to provide human companionship, dogs eclipse all other species when it comes to reading the body language of people. Dog owners hunger for a complete rapport with their pets; in the dog the fantasy of empathetic resonance finds its ideal. But cross-species communication is never easy. Dog love can be a precious but melancholy thing.

An attempt to understand human attachment to the canis familiaris in terms of reciprocity and empathy, Melancholia’sDog tackles such difficult concepts as intimacy and kinship with dogs, the shame associated with identification with their suffering, and the reasons for the profound mourning over their deaths. In addition to philosophy and psychoanalysis, Alice A. Kuzniar turns to the insights and images offered by the literary and visual arts—the short stories of Ivan Turgenev and Franz Kafka, the novels of J. M. Coetzee and Rebecca Brown, the photography of Sally Mann and William Wegman, and the artwork of David Hockney and Sue Coe. Without falling into sentimentality or anthropomorphization, Kuzniar honors and learns from our canine companions, above all attending to the silences and sadness brought on by the effort to represent the dog as perfectly and faithfully as it is said to love.
[more]

front cover of Mourning Animals
Mourning Animals
Rituals and Practices Surrounding Animal Death
Margo DeMello
Michigan State University Press, 2016
We live more intimately with nonhuman animals than ever before in history. The change in the way we cohabitate with animals can be seen in the way we treat them when they die. There is an almost infinite variety of ways to help us cope with the loss of our nonhuman friends—from burial, cremation, and taxidermy; to wearing or displaying the remains (ashes, fur, or other parts) of our deceased animals in jewelry, tattoos, or other artwork; to counselors who specialize in helping people mourn pets; to classes for veterinarians; to tips to help the surviving animals who are grieving their animal friends; to pet psychics and memorial websites. But the reality is that these practices, and related beliefs about animal souls or animal afterlife, generally only extend, with very few exceptions, to certain kinds of animals—pets. Most animals, in most cultures, are not mourned, and the question of an animal afterlife is not contemplated at all. Mourning Animals investigates how we mourn animal deaths, which animals are grievable, and what the implications are for all animals.
 
[more]

front cover of Neotropical Rainforest Mammals
Neotropical Rainforest Mammals
A Field Guide
Louise H. Emmons and François Feer
University of Chicago Press, 1997
Neotropical Rainforest Mammals, the first color-illustrated field guide to these marvelously diverse and elusive creatures, has enjoyed tremendous success since its initial publication in 1990. Ecotourists and field researchers alike have applauded this guide's compact size, light weight, and durability. More important, they have appreciated its clear and concise accounts of the mammals of this broad region. Each species account includes information on identifying characteristics, similar species, vocalizations, behavior and natural history, geographic range, conservation status, local names, and references to the scientific literature.

In this completely revised and updated second edition:

A total of 226 species are treated in full (206 were included in the first edition).

All species accounts retained from the first edition have been updated to include the most recent research.

All 195 maps showing the distribution and geographic range of each species have been revised to reflect the most current information.

Twenty-nine beautiful color plates illustrate more than 220 species (including significant color variants between males and females or adults and young). Seven black-and-white plates contain more than 60 images of individual species, mainly bats.

A compact disc of mammal vocalizations—crucial to identifying nocturnal and otherwise cryptic animals that sometimes may be heard rather than seen—will be available for purchase separately.

Praise for the first edition:

"If you can't go to the Central and South American rain forests to see firsthand their threatened ecosystems, here is the next best thing."—Washington Post Book World

"A large amount of information is presented concisely and in a way that is easy to use."—Choice

"The presentation and wealth of information contained in this field guide is outstanding and will satisfy the needs of both the 'tourist' and 'researcher' traveling to the Neotropics."—Canadian Field-Naturalist
[more]

front cover of The Ocean at Home
The Ocean at Home
An Illustrated History of the Aquarium
Bernd Brunner
Reaktion Books, 2011

The mysterious world beneath the ocean’s surface and its inhabitants have captivated humanity for centuries—the Egyptians, Greeks, Romans, and ancient Chinese all kept fish in their homes to observe and admire. But it was not until the nineteenth-century invention of the aquarium that the deep was truly domesticated, offering the curious a chance to create an indoor exotic sea world, in miniature.

In The Ocean at Home, Bernd Brunner traces the development of the aquarium from the Victorian era to the present day. Along the way, in this fascinating history, Brunner provides insight into the cultural and social circumstances that accompanied the aquarium’s swift rise in popularity. Brunner tells a compelling story of obsession, discovery, and delight—from the aquarium’s origin as a tool for scientific observation to the Victorian era’s elaborately decorated containers of curiosity, to the great public aquariums that are popular in cities around the world today.

Featuring more than 100 illustrations, this updated edition of The Ocean at Home offers a colorful and captivating look at how a Victorian obsession still enchants many today. Both the owner of a humble goldfish bowl and the dazzled spectator at major public aquariums will find The Ocean at Home an appealing and knowledgable guide to the aquatic worlds we create.

[more]

front cover of Oceans under Glass
Oceans under Glass
Tank Craft and the Sciences of the Sea
Samantha Muka
University of Chicago Press, 2023
A welcome dive into the world of aquarium craft that offers much-needed knowledge about undersea environments.

Atlantic coral is rapidly disappearing in the wild. To save the species, they will have to be reproduced quickly in captivity, and so for the last decade conservationists have been at work trying to preserve their lingering numbers and figure out how to rebuild once-thriving coral reefs from a few survivors. Captive environments, built in dedicated aquariums, offer some hope for these corals. This book examines these specialized tanks, charting the development of tank craft throughout the twentieth century to better understand how aquarium modeling has enhanced our knowledge of the marine environment.

Aquariums are essential to the way we understand the ocean. Used to investigate an array of scientific questions, from animal behavior to cancer research and climate change, they are a crucial factor in the fight to mitigate the climate disaster already threatening our seas. To understand the historical development of this scientific tool and the groups that have contributed to our knowledge about the ocean, Samantha Muka takes up specialty systems—including photographic aquariums, kriesel tanks (for jellyfish), and hatching systems—to examine the creation of ocean simulations and their effect on our interactions with underwater life. Lively and engaging, Oceans under Glass offers a fresh history about how the aquarium has been used in modern marine biology and how integral it is to knowing the marine world.
[more]

front cover of Our Oldest Companions
Our Oldest Companions
The Story of the First Dogs
Pat Shipman
Harvard University Press, 2021

How did the dog become man’s best friend? A celebrated anthropologist unearths the mysterious origins of the unique partnership that rewrote the history of both species.

Dogs and humans have been inseparable for more than 40,000 years. The relationship has proved to be a pivotal development in our evolutionary history. The same is also true for our canine friends; our connection with them has had much to do with their essential nature and survival. How and why did humans and dogs find their futures together, and how have these close companions (literally) shaped each other? Award-winning anthropologist Pat Shipman finds answers in prehistory and the present day.

In Our Oldest Companions, Shipman untangles the genetic and archaeological evidence of the first dogs. She follows the trail of the wolf-dog, neither prehistoric wolf nor modern dog, whose bones offer tantalizing clues about the earliest stages of domestication. She considers the enigma of the dingo, not quite domesticated yet not entirely wild, who has lived intimately with humans for thousands of years while actively resisting control or training. Shipman tells how scientists are shedding new light on the origins of the unique relationship between our two species, revealing how deep bonds formed between humans and canines as our guardians, playmates, shepherds, and hunters.

Along the journey together, dogs have changed physically, behaviorally, and emotionally, as humans too have been transformed. Dogs’ labor dramatically expanded the range of human capability, altering our diets and habitats and contributing to our very survival. Shipman proves that we cannot understand our own history as a species without recognizing the central role that dogs have played in it.

[more]

front cover of Parlor Ponds
Parlor Ponds
The Cultural Work of the American Home Aquarium, 1850 - 1970
Judith Hamera
University of Michigan Press, 2012

Parlor Ponds: The Cultural Work of the American Home Aquarium, 1850–1970 examines the myriad cultural meanings of the American home aquarium during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries and argues that the home aquarium provided its enthusiasts with a potent tool for managing the challenges of historical change, from urbanization to globalization. The tank could be a window to an alien world, a theater for domestic melodrama, or a vehicle in a fantastical undersea journey. Its residents were seen as inscrutable and wholly disposable “its,” as deeply loved and charismatic individuals, and as alter egos by aquarists themselves.

Parlor Ponds fills a gap in the growing field of animal studies by showing that the tank is an emblematic product of modernity, one using elements of exploration, technology, science, and a commitment to rigorous observation to contain anxieties spawned by industrialization, urbanization, changing gender roles, and imperial entanglements. Judith Hamera engages advertisements, images, memoirs, public aquarium programs, and enthusiast publications to show how the history of the aquarium illuminates complex cultural attitudes toward nature and domestication, science and religion, gender and alterity, and national conquest and environmental stewardship with an emphasis on the ways it illuminates American public discourse on colonial and postcolonial expansion.

[more]

front cover of Parrot
Parrot
Paul Carter
Reaktion Books, 2006
One of the more nonconformist figures in the animal kingdom, the parrot is linked to humans by its ability to speak—a trait many have found unsettling, though this discomfort is offset by its gorgeous plumage, which makes it one of the most popular members of the avian family. Unlike previous studies that have treated parrots as simply a curious oddity, Paul Carter offers here in Parrot a thoughtful yet spirited consideration of the natural and cultural history of parrots, discussing parrot portraiture, the role and significance of parrots' mimicry in human culture, and parrot conservation, as well the parrot's role in literature, folklore and mythology, film, and television worldwide.

Parrot takes three different approaches to the squawker: the first section, "Parrotics," examines the historical, cultural, and scientific classification of parrots; "Parroternalia," the second part, looks at the association of parrots with the different languages, ages, tastes, and dreams of society; and, finally, "Parrotology" investigates what the mimicry of parrots reveals about our own systems of communication. Humorously written and wide-ranging in scope, this volume takes readers beyond pirates and "Polly wants a cracker" to a new kind of animal history, one conscious of the critical and ironic mirror parrots hold up to human society.
[more]

front cover of Pet Revolution
Pet Revolution
Animals and the Making of Modern British Life
Jane Hamlett and Julie-Marie Strange
Reaktion Books, 2023
A history of pets and their companions in Britain from the Victorians to today.
 
Pet Revolution tracks the British love affair with pets over the last two centuries. As pets have entered our homes and joined our families, they have radically changed our world. Historians Jane Hamlett and Julie-Marie Strange show how the pet economy exploded—increasing the availability of pet foods, medicines, and shops—and reshaped our modern lives in the process. A history of pets and their human companions, this book reimagines the “pet revolution” as one among many other revolutions—industrial, agricultural, and political—that made possible contemporary life.
 
[more]

front cover of Rat
Rat
Jonathan Burt
Reaktion Books, 2004
The rat has been described as the shadow of the human: from ancient times through today, it has followed man via routes of commerce and conquest to eventually inhabit nearly every part of the world. Rats have a bad reputation—they spread disease, destroy agricultural produce, and thrive in the darkest corners of human habitation—but they have recently found credibility as a major resource for scientific experimentation. Jonathan Burt here traces the fortunes of the rat in history, myth, and culture.

Central to Rat is the history of the relationship between humans and rats and, in particular, the complex human attitudes toward these shrewd creatures. Burt examines why the rat is viewed as more loathsome and verminous than other parasitic animals and considers why humans have had diametrically opposed attitudes about the rat: some cultures greatly admire the rat for its skills, while others consider the rat the scourge of the earth. Burt also draws on a wide range of examples to explore the rat's role in science, culture, and art, from its appearances in children's literature such as The Wind in the Willows to Victorian rat- and dog-baiting pits to its symbolic roles in folklore.

Rat offers an intriguing and richly illustrated study of one of nature's most remarkable creatures and ultimately finds that the rat exists as a perverse totem for the worst excesses of human behavior.
[more]

front cover of Rescue Me
Rescue Me
On Dogs and Their Humans
Margret Grebowicz
University of Minnesota Press, 2022

What exactly is it we want from dogs today?

This is a little book about the oldest relationship we humans have cultivated with another large animal—in something like the original interspecies space, as old or older than any other practice that might be called human. But it’s also about the role of this relationship in the attrition of life—especially social life—in late capitalism. As we become more and more obsessed with imagining ourselves as benevolent rescuers of dogs, it is increasingly clear that it is dogs who are rescuing us. But from what? And toward what? Exploring adoption, work, food, and training, this book considers the social as fundamentally more-than-human and argues that the future belongs to dogs—and the humans they are pulling along.

[more]

front cover of Run, Spot, Run
Run, Spot, Run
The Ethics of Keeping Pets
Jessica Pierce
University of Chicago Press, 2016
A life shared with pets brings many emotions. We feel love for our companions, certainly, and happiness at the thought that we’re providing them with a safe, healthy life. But there’s another emotion, less often acknowledged, that can be nearly as powerful: guilt. When we see our cats gazing wistfully out the window, or watch a goldfish swim lazy circles in a bowl, we can’t help but wonder: are we doing the right thing, keeping these independent beings locked up, subject to our control? Is keeping pets actually good for the pets themselves?
 
That’s the question that animates Jessica Pierce’s powerful Run, Spot, Run. A lover of pets herself (including, over the years, dogs, cats, fish, rats, hermit crabs, and more), Pierce understands the joys that pets bring us. But she also refuses to deny the ambiguous ethics at the heart of the relationship, and through a mix of personal stories, philosophical reflections, and scientifically informed analyses of animal behavior and natural history, she puts pet-keeping to the test. Is it ethical to keep pets at all? Are some species more suited to the relationship than others? Are there species one should never attempt to own? And are there ways that we can improve our pets’ lives, so that we can be confident that we are giving them as much as they give us?
 
Deeply empathetic, yet rigorous and unflinching in her thinking, Pierce has written a book that is sure to help any pet owner, unsettling assumptions but also giving them the knowledge to build deeper, better relationships with the animals with whom they’ve chosen to share their lives.
[more]

front cover of Secrets of the Snout
Secrets of the Snout
The Dog’s Incredible Nose
Frank Rosell
University of Chicago Press, 2018
Dogs and humans have worked side by side for thousands of years, and over the millennia we’ve come to depend upon our pooches as hunters, protectors, and faithful companions. But when it comes to the extraordinary quality of man’s best friend which we rely on most, the winner is clear—by a nose. In Secrets of the Snout, Frank Rosell blends storytelling and science as he sniffs out the myriad ways in which dogs have been trained to employe their incredible olfactory skills, from sussing out cancer and narcotics to locating endangered and invasive species, as well as missing persons (and golf balls).

With 300 million receptors to our mere 5 million, a dog’s nose is estimated to be between 100,000 and 100 million times more sensitive than a human’s. No wonder, then, that our nasally inferior species has sought to unleash the prodigious power of canine shnozzes. Rosell here takes us for a walk with a pack of superhero sniffers including Tutta, a dog with a fine nose for fine wine; the pet-finder pooch AJ; search-and-rescue dog Barry; the hunting dog Balder; the police dogs Rasko and Trixxi; the warfare dog Lisa; the cancer detection dog Jack; Tucker, who scents floating killer whale feces; and even Elvis, who can smell when you’re ovulating. With each dog, Rosell turns his nose to the evolution of the unique olfactory systems involved, which odors dogs detect, and how they do it.

A celebration of how the canine sense for scents works—and works for us—Secrets of the Snout will have dog lovers, trainers, and researchers alike all howling with delight. Exploring this most pointed of canine wonders, Rosell reveals the often surprising ways in which dogs are bettering our world, one nose at a time.
[more]

front cover of Shaggy Muses
Shaggy Muses
The Dogs who Inspired Virginia Woolf, Emily Dickinson, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Edith Wharton, and Emily Brontë
Maureen Adams
University of Chicago Press, 2011

“You’ll call this sentimental—perhaps—but then a dog somehow represents the private side of life, the play side,” Virginia Woolf confessed to a friend. In this charming and engaging book, Maureen Adams celebrates this private, playful side telling readers about the relationships between five remarkable women writers and their dogs.

In Shaggy Muses, Adams explores the work and lives of these authors through the various roles played by their most devoted companions. Elizabeth Barrett Browning was rescued from a life of passivity and illness by Flush, a lively, possessive (and frequently dog-napped!) golden Cocker Spaniel. Emily Brontë’s fierce Mastiff mix, Keeper, provided a safe and loving outlet for the writer’s equally fierce spirit. Emily Dickinson found companionship with Carlo, the gentle, giant Newfoundland who soothed her emotional terrors. A troop of ever-faithful Pekingese warmed Edith Wharton’s lonely heart during her restless travels among Europe and America’s social and intellectual elite. And Virginia Woolf developed a deep attachment to Pinka, a black Cocker Spaniel who was both gift from her lover, Vita Sackville-West, and a link to her husband Leonard.

Based on diaries, letters, and other contemporary accounts—and featuring many illustrations of the writers and their dogs—these five miniature biographies allow unparalleled intimacy with women of genius in their hours of domestic ease and inner vulnerability.

[more]

front cover of Short Leash
Short Leash
A Memoir of Dog Walking and Deliverance
Janice Gary
Michigan State University Press, 2013

Janice Gary never walked alone without a dog - a big dog. Once, she was an adventurer, a girl who ran off to California with big dreams and hopes of leaving her past behind. But after a brutal rape, her youthful bravado vanished, replaced by a crippling need for safety. When she rescues a gangly Lab-Rottweiler pup,Gary is sure she’s found her biggest protector yet. But after Barney is attacked by a vicious dog, he becomes a clone of his attacker, trying to kill any dog that comes near him. Walking with Barney is impossible. Yet walking without him is unthinkable.
    After years of being exiled by her terror and Barney’s defensiveness, Janice risks taking her dog to a park near the Chesapeake Bay. There, she begins the messy, lurching process of walking into her greatest fears. As the leash of the past unravels, Barney sheds the defensive behaviors that once shackled him and Gary steps out of the self-imposed isolation that held her captive for three decades. Beautifully written, Short Leash is much more than a “dog story” or a book about recovering from trauma. It is a moving tale of love and loss, the journey of a broken soul finding itsway toward wholeness.

[more]

front cover of Snake
Snake
Drake Stutesman
Reaktion Books, 2005
A snake smells with its tongue, hears with its flesh, and breathes under the sand with one lung; it can copulate for days with one snake or with fifty at once; it has infrared radar; and it can induce spontaneous bleeding if threatened. With all these qualities, it is easy to see how snakes have such varied associations in cultures around the world: while celebrated in tattoos and tales, and for medicinal benefits, snakes are also so universally feared that they constantly endure intense persecution and rarely enjoy protected rights. Drake Stutesman explores here in Snake the fascinating natural history of the maligned serpentine.

Stutesman examines a wide range of sources to investigate the complex and widespread symbolism the snake has inspired, including the serpent's temptation of Eve in the Bible, Kaa in The Jungle Book, the Chinese zodiac, Indian snake charmers, and the Hollywood film Anaconda. She looks at the role snakes have played in human culture and science, from snake cuisine and the use of venom in medicine to the intriguing history of snake symbolism in art, architecture, cinema, and even clothing. Richly illustrated and written in an engaging style, Snake is an invaluable resource for snake enthusiasts and scholars, as well as for all who love, admire, or fear this fascinating and enduring animal.
[more]

front cover of Traveling with Service Animals
Traveling with Service Animals
By Air, Road, Rail, and Ship across North America
Henry Kisor and Christine Goodier
University of Illinois Press, 2019
The boom in trained service animal use and access has transformed the lives of travelers with disabilities. As a result, tens of thousands of people in the United States and Canada enjoy travel options that were difficult or impossible just a few years ago. Henry Kisor and Christine Goodier provide a narrative guidebook full of essential information and salted with personal, hands-on stories of life on the road with service dogs and miniature horses. As the travel-savvy human companions of Trooper (Kisor's miniature schnauzer/poodle cross) and Raylene (Goodier's black Labrador), the authors share experiences from packing for your animal partner to widely varying legal protections to the animal-friendly rides at Disneyland. Chapters cover the specifics of air, rail, road, and cruise ship travel, while appendixes offer checklists, primers on import regulations and corporate policies, advice for emergencies, and a route-by-route guide to finding relief walks during North American train trips. Practical and long overdue, Traveling with Service Animals provides any human-animal partnership with a horizon-to-horizon handbook for exploring the world.
[more]

front cover of Unnatural Companions
Unnatural Companions
Rethinking Our Love of Pets in an Age of Wildlife Extinction
Peter Christie
Island Press, 2019
"Highly compelling...page-turning read" — TNC's Cool Green Science

We love our pets. Dogs, cats, birds, reptiles, and other species have become an essential part of more families than ever before—in North America today, pets outnumber people. Pet owners are drawn to their animal companions through an innate desire to connect with other species. But there is a dark side to our domestic connection with animal life: the pet industry is contributing to a global conservation crisis for wildlife—often without the knowledge of pet owners.
 
In Unnatural Companions, journalist Peter Christie issues a call to action for pet owners. If we hope to reverse the alarming trend of wildlife decline, pet owners must acknowledge the pets-versus-conservation dilemma and concede that our well-fed and sheltered cats too often prey on small backyard wildlife and seemingly harmless reptiles released into the wild might be the next destructive invasive species. We want our pets to eat nutritionally healthy food, but how does the designer food we feed them impact the environment?
 
Christie's book is a cautionary tale to responsible pet owners about why we must change the ways we love and care for our pets. It concludes with the positive message that the small changes we make at home can foster better practices within the pet industry that will ultimately benefit our pets’ wild brethren.
[more]

front cover of Warmed by Windchill
Warmed by Windchill
A Tiny Colt’s Fight for Life
Jeffrey L. Tucker; Foreword by Carolyn L. Stull, PhD
University of Wisconsin Press, 2013
One bitterly cold winter afternoon, a nine-month-old colt—extremely weak, starving, left to die—was frozen to the rock-hard white landscape of a northern Wisconsin pasture. His whinny for help barely carried through thirty-mile-an-hour winds lashing snow and ice against his thin coat. But somewhere inside him a light refused to go out.
            The colt's call for help was answered, and that light inspired a worldwide response to his story. The struggle of the little colt, called Windchill by his rescuers, was reported widely, and soon 1.2 million people were following Windchill's progress on a blog and webcam.
            Warmed by Windchill tells how Jeffrey L. Tucker, owner of nearby Raindance Farms, and Kathi Davis, owner of a horse training operation co-located at Raindance, rescued and cared for the colt, aided by an outpouring of assistance. Donations of money, feed, blankets, and other supplies streamed in as round-the-clock volunteers tried to save Windchill. Warmed by Windchill is both heartening and heartbreaking.
[more]

front cover of What Is a Dog?
What Is a Dog?
Raymond Coppinger and Lorna Coppinger
University of Chicago Press, 2016
Of the world’s dogs, less than two hundred million are pets, living with humans who provide food, shelter, squeaky toys, and fashionable sweaters. But roaming the planet are four times as many dogs who are their own masters—neighborhood dogs, dump dogs, mountain dogs. They are dogs, not companions, and these dogs, like pigeons or squirrels, are highly adapted scavengers who have evolved to fit particular niches in the vicinity of humans. In What Is a Dog? experts on dog behavior Raymond and Lorna Coppinger present an eye-opening analysis of the evolution and adaptations of these unleashed dogs and what they can reveal about the species as a whole.

Exploring the natural history of these animals, the Coppingers explain how the village dogs of Vietnam, India, Africa, and Mexico are strikingly similar. These feral dogs, argue the Coppingers, are in fact the truly archetypal dogs, nearly uniform in size and shape and incredibly self-sufficient. Drawing on nearly five decades of research, they show how dogs actually domesticated themselves in order to become such efficient scavengers of human refuse. The Coppingers also examine the behavioral characteristics that enable dogs to live successfully and to reproduce, unconstrained by humans, in environments that we ordinarily do not think of as dog friendly.

Providing a fascinating exploration of what it actually means—genetically and behaviorally—to be a dog, What Is a Dog? will undoubtedly change the way any beagle or bulldog owner will reflect on their four-legged friend.
 
[more]

front cover of Who's a Good Dog?
Who's a Good Dog?
And How to Be a Better Human
Jessica Pierce
University of Chicago Press, 2023
A New Scientist Best Book of 2023

A guide to cultivating a shared life of joy and respect with our dogs.
 
Who’s a Good Dog? is an invitation to nurture more thoughtful and balanced relationships with our canine companions. By deepening our curiosity about what our dogs are experiencing, and by working together with them in a spirit of collaboration, we can become more effective and compassionate caregivers.
 
With sympathy for the challenges met by both dogs and their humans, bioethicist Jessica Pierce explores common practices of caring for dogs, including how we provide exercise, what we feed, how and why we socialize and train, and how we employ tools such as collars and leashes. She helps us both to identify potential sources of fear and anxiety in our dogs’ lives and to expand practices that provide physical and emotional nourishment. Who’s a Good Dog? also encourages us to think more critically about what we expect of our dogs and how these expectations can set everyone up for success or failure. Pierce offers resources to help us cultivate attentiveness and kindness, inspiring us to practice the art of noticing, of astonishment, of looking with fresh eyes at these beings we think we know so well. And more than this, she makes her findings relatable by examining facets of her relationship with Bella, the dog in her life. As Bella shows throughout, all dogs are good dogs, and we, as humans and dog guardians, could be doing a little bit better to get along with them and give them what they need.
[more]

front cover of Whose Dog Are You?
Whose Dog Are You?
The Technology of Dog Breeds and The Aesthetics of Modern Human-Canine Relations
Martin Wallen
Michigan State University Press, 2017
The intriguing question in the title comes from an inscription on the collar of a dog Alexander Pope gave to the Prince of Wales. When Pope wrote the famous couplet “I am his Highness’ Dog at Kew, / Pray tell me Sir, whose Dog are You?” the question was received as an expression of loyalty. That was an era before there were dog breeds and, not coincidentally, before people were generally believed to develop affectionate bonds with dogs. This interdisciplinary study focuses on the development of dog breeds in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Beginning with the Foxhound—the first modern breed—it examines the aesthetic, political, and technological forces that generate modern human-canine relations. These forces have colluded over the past two hundred years to impose narrow descriptions of human-canine relations and to shape the dogs physically into acceptable and recognizable breeds. The largest question in animal studies today—how alterity affects human-animal relations—cannot fully be considered until the two approaches to this question are understood as complements of one another: one beginning from aesthetics, the other from technology. Most of all, the book asks if we can engage with dogs in ways that allow them to remain dogs.
 
[more]

front cover of Why the Wild Things Are
Why the Wild Things Are
Animals in the Lives of Children
Gail F. Melson
Harvard University Press, 2005

Whether they see themselves as King of the Wild Things or protector of Toto, children live in a world filled with animals--both real and imaginary. From Black Beauty to Barney, animal characters romp through children's books, cartoons, videos, and computer games. As Gail Melson tells us, more than three-quarters of all children in America live with pets and are now more likely to grow up with a pet than with both parents. She explores not only the therapeutic power of pet-owning for children with emotional or physical handicaps but also the ways in which zoo and farm animals, and even certain purple television characters, become confidants or teachers for children--and sometimes, tragically, their victims.

Yet perhaps because animals are ubiquitous, what they really mean to children, for better and for worse, has been unexplored territory. Why the Wild Things Are is the first book to examine children's many connections to animals and to explore their developmental significance. What does it mean that children's earliest dreams are of animals? What is the unique gift that a puppy can give to a boy? Drawing on psychological research, history, and children's media, Why the Wild Things Are explores the growth of the human-animal connection. In chapters on children's emotional ties to their pets, the cognitive challenges of animal contacts, animal symbols as building blocks of the self, and pointless cruelty to animals, Melson shows how children's innate interest in animals is shaped by their families and their social worlds, and may in turn shape the kind of people they will become.

[more]

front cover of Wild Cats of the World
Wild Cats of the World
Mel Sunquist and Fiona Sunquist
University of Chicago Press, 2002
Did you know that European royalty once used cheetahs to hunt deer, or that caracals can capture birds by leaping six and a half feet straight up into the air from a standing start? Have you ever wondered whether domestic cats really do land on their feet when they fall, or how Canada lynx can stalk their prey in the winter without falling through the deep snow?

Wild Cats of the World is a treasure trove of answers to questions like these, and many others, for anyone who's interested in learning more about the world's felids, including the ones with whom we share our homes. Mel and Fiona Sunquist have spent more than a decade gathering information about cats from every available source, many of them quite difficult to find, including scientific papers, descriptions of hunts, archeological findings, observations by naturalists and travelers, reports from government agencies, and newsletters from a wide variety of organizations. Weaving information from these sources together with their own experiences observing wild cats around the world, the Sunquists have created the most comprehensive reference on felids available. Each of their accounts of the 36 species of cat contains a description of the cat, including human interactions with it, as well as detailed data on its distribution, ecology and behavior, status in the wild, and efforts to conserve it. Numerous photographs, including more than 40 in full color, illustrate these accounts.

Ranging from the two-pound black-footed cat to the five-hundred-pound tiger, and from the African serval with its satellite-dish ears to the web-footed fishing cat of Asia, Wild Cats of the World will fascinate and educate felid fans of any stripe (or spot).
[more]

front cover of Wild Neighborhood
Wild Neighborhood
John Henricksson
University of Minnesota Press, 1997

front cover of Wingbeats and Heartbeats
Wingbeats and Heartbeats
Essays on Game Birds, Gun Dogs, and Days Afield
Dave Books; Illustrations by Christopher Smith
University of Wisconsin Press, 2013
Wingbeats and Heartbeats is a wingshooter's odyssey to the wild places where, at the end of the day, the companionship of faithful gun dogs and good friends matters more than a bulging game bag.
            In this sometimes humorous and sometimes poignant collection of essays, Dave Books celebrates a time-honored connection to the land and the hard-earned hunting rewards of an outdoor life. Through these essays, readers tag along on adventures in the forests of Wisconsin and Minnesota, the fields of Iowa and North Dakota, the prairies of eastern Montana and Nebraska, the mountains of western Montana and Idaho, and the deserts of Arizona. Books also writes of the game birds that hunters pursue and admire: grouse, quail, woodcock, doves, chukars, Hungarian partridge, and waterfowl.
            A heartfelt tribute to the freedom and magic of the hunt, Wingbeats and Heartbeats is a book that has much to say about work and fun, success and failure, and the sights, sounds, and smells of a day afield.
[more]


Send via email Share on Facebook Share on Twitter