Throughout the ordeal, her constant companion was a cat named Boogie. Years later, she wouldmake the connection between her feline friend and the farm animals she ate, acknowledging that most of America’s domesticated animals live on industrialized farms, and are viewed as mere production units. Raised in a conservative Southern Baptist family in Kentucky, Brown had been taught to avoid asking questions. But she found her calling and the courage to speak out. She left a flourishing career as a film and television producer after going undercover and exposing horrific animal abuse in Texas stockyards.Bringing to life this exhilarating transformation, The Lucky Ones introduces readers to Brown’s crowning achievement, the renowned Woodstock Farm Animal Sanctuary she established with her husband in 2004. With a cast of unforgettable survivors, including a fugitive slaughterhouse calf named Herbie; Albie, the three-legged goat; and Quincy, an Easter duckling found abandoned in New York City, The Lucky Ones reveals shocking statistics about the prevalence of animal abuse throughout America’s agribusinesses. Blending wry humor with unflinching honesty, Brown brings a compelling new voice to the healthy-living movement—and to the vulnerable, voiceless creatures among us.

    Now, in The Possibility Dogs, Charleson journeys into the world of psychiatric service, where dogs aid humans with disabilities that may be unseen but are no less felt. This work had a profound effect on Charleson, perhaps because, for her, this journey began as a personal one: Charleson herself struggled with posttraumatic stress disorder for months after a particularly grisly search. Collaboration with her search dog partner made the surprising difference to her own healing. Inspired by that experience, Charleson learns to identify abandoned dogs with service potential, often plucking them from shelters at the last minute, and to train them for work beside hurting partners, to whom these second-chance dogs bring intelligence, comfort, and hope. Along the way she comes to see canine potential everywhere, often where she least expects it – from Merlin the chocolate lab puppy with the broken tail once cast away in a garbage bag, who now stabilizes his partner’s panic attacks; to Ollie, the blind and deaf terrier, rescued moments before it was too late, who now soothes anxious children; to Jake Piper, the starving pit bull terrier mix with the wayward ears who is transformed into a working service dog and, who, for Charleson, goes from abandoned to irreplaceable.

    It reads like a novel, but it is one of the most important scientific works ever published. The community is Gombe, on the shores of Lake Tangganyika, where the principal residents are chimpanzees and one extraordinary woman who is their student, protector, and historian. In her classic In the Shadow of Man, Jane Goodall wrote of her first ten years at Gombe. In Through a Window she brings the story up to the present, painting a much more complete and vivid portrait of our closest relative. We see the community split in two and a brutal war break out. We watch young Figan's relentless rise to power and old Mike's crushing defeat. We learn how one mother rears her children to succeed and another dooms them to failure. We witness horrifying murders, touching moments of affection, joyous births, and wrenching deaths. In short, we see every emotion known to humans stripped to its essence. In the mirror of chimpanzee life, we see ourselves reflected. Perhaps the best book ever written about animal behavior, Through a Window is also essential reading for anyone seeking a better grasp of human behavior.

    The experience changed his life. While spending thousands of hours with the cubs, Kilham discovered unknown facets of bear behavior that have radically revised our understanding of animal behavior. Now widely recognized for his contributions to wildlife science, Kilham reveals that bears are altruistic and cooperate with unrelated, even unknown individuals, while our closer relatives, the supposedly more highly evolved chimps, cooperate only within troops of recognizable members. Beyond the natural history, he introduces individual bears who become enthralling and memorable characters.

    Wells begins his work as an inexperienced recent college grad and emerges a caring and beloved veterinarian. Affording the reader an inside glimpse into his daily life, he narrates many uplifting, life-altering, lifethreatening, and hilarious episodes.

    Then Bob married Linda. She wanted a rabbit, which seemed innocuous enough until the bunny chewed through their electrical wiring. And that was just the beginning. Before long, Bob found himself constructing cages, buying feed, clearing duck waste, and spoon-feeding a menagerie of furry and feathery residents. His life of quiet serenity vanished, and he unwittingly became a servant to a relentlessly demanding family.Whether commiserating with Bob over the fate of those who are slaves to their animals or regarding his story as a cautionary tale about the rigors of animal ownership, readers on both sides of the fence have found Tarte's story of his chaotic squawking household irresistible—and irresistibly funny.

    But after a devastatingly difficult winter, with sky high bills, she didn't know if she could afford to carry on - or if she had the physical strength to keep going. Then, in the first week of January, the phone rang. A donkey had been abandoned 130 miles away. Rushing to his rescue Tracy found Alan - forlorn, balding and shivering - tethered up tightly in a supermarket car park. Barely able to walk on his painfully overgrown hooves, he had been left to die. Tracy ran her hands gently over Alan's protruding ribs, and whispered in his ear: 'Don't worry boy, I won't give up on you.' Over the next twelve months, as Tracy grappled with attacks from vandals and perilous flash floods and desperately tried to raise money, Alan gradually recovered - turning into a loveable rogue. As Christmas rolled around, Tracy was too worried about the future to enjoy the festive season. She had no idea that the shy skinny animal she'd rescued was going to give her the greatest gift of all . . . For animal lovers everywhere, Alan The Christmas Donkey is a funny, warm and inspiring read.

    In addition to his day job in the Oxfordshire countryside treating cows, dogs, pigs and cats, he's also worked with an astonishing range of species around the world, including crocodiles, rhinos and pandas. In this charming collection he introduces us to some of his favourite patients, ranging from beloved family pets through to magnificent creatures of the wild. Whether microchipping armadillos, anaesthetising giraffes or advising the makers of the Jurassic World series on exactly how to operate on a velociraptor, Jonathan's love for his work and the entire animal kingdom is infectious. From the preposterous (castrating a sugar glider) to the poignant (encountering victims of rhino poaching), the stories in The Travelling Vet will delight and enthral every animal lover.

    But events conspired to fling Carter Niemeyer westward and straight into the jaws of wolves. From his early years wrangling ornery federal trappers, eagles and grizzlies, to winning a skinning contest that paved the way for wolf reintroduction in the Northern Rockies, Carter Niemeyer reveals the wild and bumpy ride that turned a trapper - a killer - into a champion of wolves.

     Trust.  Triumph.I trust Roselle with my life, every day. She trusts me to direct her. And today is no different, except the stakes are higher. Michael HingsonFirst came the boom the loud, deep, unapologetic bellow that seemed to erupt from the very core of the earth. Eerily, the majestic high-rise slowly leaned to the south. On the seventy-eighth floor of the World Trade Center's north tower, no alarms sounded, and no one had information about what had happened at 8:46 a.m. on September 11, 2001. What should have been a normal workday for thousands of people. All that was known to the people inside was what they could see out the windows: smoke and fire and millions of pieces of burning paper and other debris falling through the air.Blind since birth, Michael couldn't see a thing, but he could hear the sounds of shattering glass, falling debris, and terrified people flooding around him and his guide dog, Roselle. However, Roselle sat calmly beside him. In that moment, Michael chose to trust Roselle's judgment and not to panic. They are a team.Thunder Dog allows you entry into the isolated, fume-filled chamber of stairwell B to experience survival through the eyes of a blind man and his beloved guide dog. Live each moment from the second a Boeing 767 hits the north tower, to the harrowing stairwell escape, to dodging death a second time as both towers fold into the earth.It's the 9/11 story that will forever change your spirit and your perspective. Thunder Dog illuminates Hingson's lifelong determination to achieve parity in a sighted world, and how the rare trust between a man and his guide dog can inspire an unshakable faith in each one of us.

    Army, Luis Montalván never backed down from a challenge during his two tours of duty in Iraq. After returning home from combat, however, his physical wounds and crippling post-traumatic stress disorder began to take their toll. He wondered if he would ever recover.Then Luis met Tuesday, a sensitive golden retriever trained to assist the disabled. Tuesday had lived among prisoners and at a home for troubled boys, and he found it difficult to trust in or connect with a human being--until Luis.Until Tuesday is the story of how two wounded warriors, who had given so much and suffered the consequences, found salvation in each other. It is a story about war and peace, injury and recovery, psychological wounds and spiritual restoration. But more than that, it is a story about the love between a man and dog, and how, together, they healed each other's souls.

    Keeping bees, she found solace in the natural world. She began to write, challenging herself to tell the absolute truth about her life and the things that she cared about. The result is one of the best-loved books ever written about life on the land, about a woman finding her way in middle age.

    It is considered the best reference on wolves of its kind.

    A special gift. A life-changing journey. They thought he was just a cat. When Oscar arrived at the Steere House Nursing and Rehabilitation Center in Rhode Island he was a cute little guy with attitude. He loved to stretch out in a puddle of sunlight and chase his tail until he was dizzy. Occasionally he consented to a scratch behind the ears, but only when it suited him. In other words, he was a typical cat. Or so it seemed. It wasn't long before Oscar had created something of a stir. Apparently, this ordinary cat possesses an extraordinary gift: he knows instinctively when the end of life is near. Oscar is a welcome distraction for the residents of Steere House, many of whom are living with Alzheimer's. But he never spends much time with them -- until they are in their last hours. Then, as if this were his job, Oscar strides purposely into a patient's room, curls up on the bed, and begins his vigil. Oscar provides comfort and companionship when people need him most. And his presence lets caregivers and loved ones know that it's time to say good-bye. Oscar's gift is a tender mercy. He teaches by example: embracing moments of life that so many of us shy away from. Making Rounds with Oscar is the story of an unusual cat, the patients he serves, their caregivers, and of one doctor who learned how to listen. Heartfelt, inspiring, and full of humor and pathos, this book allows readers to take a walk into a world rarely seen from the outside, a world we often misunderstand.

    A crucial figure in the creation of our national parks system and a far-seeing prophet of environmental awareness who founded the Sierra Club in 1892, he was also a master of natural description who evoked with unique power and intimacy the untrammeled landscapes of the American West. The Library of America’s Nature Writings collects his most significant and best-loved works in a single volume.The Story of My Boyhood and Youth (1913) is Muir’s memoir of growing up by the sea in Scotland, of coming to America with his family at age eleven, and of his early fascination with the natural world. My First Summer in the Sierra (1911) is his famous account of the spiritual awakening he experienced when, in 1869, he first encountered the mountains and valleys of central California, of which he wrote: “Bathed in such beauty, watching the expressions ever varying on the faces of the mountains, watching the stars, which here have a glory that the lowlander never dreams of, watching the circling seasons, listening to the songs of the waters and winds and birds, would be endless pleasure…. No other place has ever so overwhelmingly attracted me as this hospitable, Godful wilderness.”The natural history classic The Mountains of California (1894) draws on half a lifetime of exploration of the High Sierra country to celebrate and evoke the region’s lakes, forests, flowers, and animals, its glaciers, storms, floods, and geological formations, in a masterpiece of observation and poetic description: “After ten years spent in the heart of it … it still seems to me above all others the Range of Light, the most divinely beautiful of all the mountain-chains I have ever seen.”Stickeen (1909), Muir’s most popular book, is the affectionate story of his adventure with a dog in Alaska. Rounding out the volume is a rich selection of essays—including “Yosemite Glaciers,” “God’s First Temples,” “Snow-Storm on Mount Shasta,” “The American Forests,” and the late appeal “Save the Redwoods”—highlighting various aspects of his career: his exploration of the Grand Canyon and of what became Yosemite and Yellowstone national parks, his successful crusades to preserve the wilderness, his early walking tour to Florida, and the Alaska journey of 1879.