Book picks similar to
Lads Before the Wind: Diary of a Dolphin Trainer by Karen Pryor
animals
non-fiction
dog-training
animal-behavior
Oaxaca Journal
Oliver Sacks - 2002
However, he is also a card-carrying member of the American Fern Society, and since childhood has been fascinated by these primitive plants and their ability to survive and adapt in many climates. Oaxaca Journal is Sacks's spellbinding account of his trip with a group of fellow fern enthusiasts to the beautiful, history-steeped province of Oaxaca, Mexico. Bringing together Sacks's passion for natural history and the richness of human culture with his sharp eye for detail, Oaxaca Journal is a captivating evocation of a place, its plants, its people, and its myriad wonders.
The Rites of Autumn
Dan O'Brien - 1988
When one of his release sites was raided by a golden eagle, he managed to save a peregrine chick, and decided to make an improbable two-thousand-mile trip with the surviving young falcon, Dolly. From the Canadian border to the Gulf of Mexico, following the autumnal migration of waterfowl, O'Brien taught her to hunt as a wild falcon would, in the hopes of releasing her into the natural world. The Rites of Autumn is the riveting account of their incredible journey. (51/2 X 81/4, 208 pages, map)
Little Boy Blue: A Puppy's Rescue from Death Row and His Owner's Journey for Truth
Kim Kavin - 2012
She had no idea that the adorable brindle puppy—advertised as healthy and near her home in New Jersey—was actually a last-minute rescue from a gas-chamber shelter in North Carolina. Blue had arrived in the Northeast with at least a dozen other dogs in an RV that is just one among countless transports whose sponsors are dedicating their efforts to saving dogs by any means possible. Blue was happy and friendly, but he seemed to have endured some unusual albeit unknown ordeal. The dog’s manner prompted Kavin to trace his history all the way back to a long row of cages where Blue had been tagged to be put down in just three more days. Little Boy Blue is the true story of one sweet puppy’s journey of survival. It’s also a shocking exposé that describes a brutal ongoing reality inside some of this country’s taxpayer-funded shelters. But Little Boy Blue also tells an inspiring story of the grass-roots rescue network that has exploded across the nation in recent years. Readers will come to know and love a very special dog who now brings smiles to the faces of everyone he meets. From a single click of Kim Kavin’s computer mouse, Blue’s journey of a lifetime began. This is the story of Little Boy Blue, told with candor and a great deal of love. Readers will see Blue and other foster dogs that have been rescued by Kim Kavin in this book’s color photo insert.A portion of the proceeds from the sale of this book will donated to the Petfinder.com Foundation.From the Reviews:"A moving call to action."—Kirkus Reviews
Elephants: Birth, Life, and Death in the World of the Giants
Hannah Mumby - 2020
Hannah Mumby has loved wildlife, especially elephants. Her first wild elephant sighting at twenty-four changed the course of her life. Since then, she has devoted herself to studying these incredible animals and educating humanity about them. Hannahs field work has taken her around the world, where she has studied many elephant groups, including both orphaned elephants and the solitary elephant males.These remarkable animals have so much to teach us, Mumby argues, and The Elephant in the Mirror takes readers into their world as never before, revealing a society as complex as the chimpanzees, maybe even humans. Mumbys exploration of elephant culture provides an empathetic, humanistic portrait of these majestic animals, illuminating their personalities, memories, and rich emotional lives. Mumby explains how elephants communicate with one another and demonstrates the connection between memory and traumahow it affects individual elephants and their interactions with others in their herd. Elephants and humans, Mumby makes clear, are not very different. From emotional bonding to communication, human and elephant experience similarly nuanced lives, and the commonalities she uncovers are both surprising and heartwarming.Featuring a 16-page color insert of original photography, The Elephant in the Mirror is a captivating, deeply moving exploration that offers a new way to look at these pachydermsand ourselvesand a persuasive, passionate argument for rethinking our approach to animals and their conservation.
The Philosopher and the Wolf: Lessons from the Wild on Love, Death, and Happiness
Mark Rowlands - 2008
After acquiring Brenin as a cub, it quickly became apparent that Brenin was never to be left alone, as the consequences to Mark’s house and its contents were dire. As a result, Brenin and Mark went everywhere together—from classroom lecture to Ireland, England, and France. More than just an exotic pet, Brenin exerted an immense influence on Rowlands as both a person, and, strangely enough, as a philosopher, leading him to re-evaluate his attitude to love, happiness, nature and death. By turns funny (what do you do when your wolf eats your air-conditioning unit?) and poignant, this life-affirming book will make you reappraise what it means to be human.
Your Dog Is Your Mirror: The Emotional Capacity of Our Dogs and Ourselves
Kevin Behan - 2011
The dog doesn’t respond to its owner based on what the owner thinks, says, or does; it responds to what the owner feels. And in this way, dogs can actually put people back in touch with their own emotions.Behan was originally trained under the dominance theory by his father, John Behan, one of the first in America to make dog training a career. But he eventually came to believe that what made the modern dog trainable was not the dominance hierarchy but the dog’s ability to work as a cooperative group member in the hunt. This ability then evolved into an emotional capacity that perfectly complements human emotion.Behan demonstrates that dogs and humans are connected more profoundly than has ever been imagined — by heart — and that this approach to dog cognition can help us understand many of dogs’ most inscrutable behaviors. This groundbreaking, provocative book opens the door to a whole new understanding between species, and perhaps a whole new understanding of ourselves.
My Patients and Other Animals: A Veterinarian's Stories of Love, Loss, and Hope
Suzy Fincham-Gray - 2018
In 2000 she graduated, with honors, from the Royal Veterinary College in London, and her journey in veterinary medicine has taken her from the English-Welsh border to an inner-city Philadelphia ER to the West Coast of America, with thousands of stories collected along the way. In this unforgettable and profound literary debut we are taken into the heart of the relationship we share with the animals in our lives, and the decisions we must make when a loved one becomes sick. We meet Grayling, an Irish Wolfhound in need of intensive care; with Ned, a rescue dog from Mexico, we experience the joy of saving an animal from disease; and the story of Sweetie explores the lengths doctors will go to save a patient. Fincham-Gray is a rare breed--a clinician with an elegant literary style. She affords a view few can obtain and writes with the same tenderness she brings to her patients, whose needs she must meet with her mind, her hands and her heart. Rich in warmth and humor, My Patients and Other Animals is a memorable story of compassion, healing, and hope.
The Penguin Lessons
Tom Michell - 2015
When the bird refuses to leave Tom's side, the young teacher has no choice but to take it with him and look after it. This is their story.
The Wolf in the Parlor: The Eternal Connection Between Humans and Dogs
Jon Franklin - 2000
They are everywhere but how much do we really know about where they came from and what the implications are of their place in our world? Jon Franklin set out to find out and ended up spending a decade studying the origins and significance of the dog and its peculiar attachment to humans. As the intellectual pursuit of his subject began to take over Franklin's life, he married a dog lover and was quickly introduced to the ancient and powerful law of nature, to wit: Love me, love my dog. Soon Franklin was sharing hearth and home with a soulful and clever poodle named Charlie.And so began one man's journey to the dogs, an odyssey that would take him from a 12,000-year-old grave to a conclusion so remarkable as to change our perception of ourselves. Building on evolutionary science, archaeology, behavioral science, and the firsthand experience of watching his own dog evolve from puppy to family member, Franklin posits that man and dog are more than just inseparable; they are part and parcel of the same creature. Along the way, "The Wolf in the Parlor" imparts a substantial yet painless education on subjects as far ranging as psychological evolution and neurochemistry. In this groundbreaking book, master storyteller Franklin shatters the lens through which we see the world and shows us an unexpected, enthralling picture of the human/canine relationship.
A Fish Caught in Time: The Search for the Coelacanth
Samantha Weinberg - 2001
It was five feet long, with steel-blue scales, luminescent eyes and remarkable limb-like fins, unlike those of any fish she had ever seen. Determined to preserve her unusual find, she searched for days for a way to save it, but ended up with only the skin and a few bones.A charismatic amateur ichthyologist, J.L.B. Smith, saw a thumbnail sketch of the fish and was thunderstruck. He recognized it as a coelacanth (pronounced see-la-kanth), a creature known from fossils dating back 400 million years and thought to have died out with the dinosaurs. With its extraordinary limbs, the coelacanth was believed to be the first fish to crawl from the sea and evolve into reptiles, mammals and eventually mankind. The discovery was immediately dubbed the "greatest scientific find of the century." Smith devoted his life to the search for a complete specimen, afourteen-year odyssey that culminated in a dramatic act of international piracy. As the fame of the coelacanth spread, so did rumors and obsessions. Nations fought over it, multimillion-dollar expeditions were launched, and submarines hand-built to find it. In 1998, the rumors and the truth came together in a gripping climax, which brought the coelacanth back into the international limelight.A Fish Caught in Time is the entrancing story of the most rare and precious fish in the world--our own great uncle forty million times removed.
The Daily Coyote: Story of Love, Survival, and Trust In the Wilds of Wyoming
Shreve Stockton - 2008
A lavishly illustrated journal based on the author's experiences of raising an orphaned coyote documents the first year of their relationship, during which the author, the pup, and her cat shared an unusual life in a Wyoming log cabin.
Beyond Words: What Animals Think and Feel
Carl Safina - 2015
Beyond Words, readers travel to Amboseli National Park in the threatened landscape of Kenya and witness struggling elephant families work out how to survive poaching and drought, then to Yellowstone National Park to observe wolves sort out the aftermath of one pack's personal tragedy, and finally plunge into the astonishingly peaceful society of killer whales living in the crystalline waters of the Pacific Northwest.
Inspiring Resilience in Fearful and Reactive Dogs
Sally Gutteridge - 2018
Written by a long-term dog behaviour specialist and founder of Canine Principles, canine education provider, this book will provide all the understanding you need. You will learn: What your dog is trying to tell you. How to communicate in a way that you both understand. How to ensure you are fully meeting your dog’s needs. Why your dog acts up and why he can’t help it. Why walking your dog might not be the best choice. How your dog sees the world. Why your dog barks at things. Which things scare your dog. Brain work to relax your dog. How to assess your dog’s personality. How your dog’s brain stores information. Why your dog makes bad choices and how to change those choices for better ones. How dogs experience stress and what we can do to help them. Whether your dog is an introvert or extrovert and how that affects his behaviour. How to change a negative bias to a positive one. Simple solutions to make your dog feel secure. How to teach self-belief and confidence. And much, much more. Whether you are a desperate dog guardian or a professional canine coach looking to expand your training toolkit, this book is an invaluable addition to your bookshelf.