From ANIMAL PEOPLE, March 2011:
What Every Horse Should Know
by Cherry Hill
Storey Publishing (210 MASS MoCA Way, North Adams,
MA 01247), 2011. 192 pages, paperback. $19.95.

“Horses are wonderful already,” begins Cherry Hill in What
Every Horse Should Know. Her book is wonderful too.
Hill, horse trainer extraordinaire, begins the book with a
chapter on fear. Fear, she says, is the single most dangerous and
destructive force in a relationship with a horse. “Eradicate fear
and you begin to develop trust,” Hill writes. Fearful horses often
panic and try to flee. Wild or undomesticated horses, suddenly
cornered, feel trapped. Attempting to escape can harm the horse or
anyone standing close by.

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE,  January/February 2011:

Ask the Animals:  A vet’s-eye view  of pets and the people they love
by Bruce R. Coston,  DVM
Thomas Dunne Books (175 Fifth Ave.,  New York,
NY 10010),  2010.  274 pages,  paperback.  $14.99.

I like books that start with a bark and don’t stop yapping until I’m done.  Ask the Animals isn’t one of them.  Having spent the past 20 years volunteering in animal shelters,  including shelter clinics,  I have an idea how brisk and lively a vet’s office can be–but I read nearly 50 pages of Ask the Animals before Coston moved past his personal life to introduce an animal who was not his own. This was a dog named Tess who was referred to his teaching hospital for a further evaluation of a complex medical problem. Read more

From ANIMAL PEOPLE,  January/February 2011:

Saving Cinnamon:  The Amazing True Story of a Missing Military Puppy And the Desperate Mission to Bring Her Home  by Christine Sullivan
St. Martin’s Press (175 Fifth Ave.,  New York,  NY 10010),  2010. 256 pages,  paperback.  $14.95.

Mark Feffer,  a U.S. soldier then serving in Kandahar, Afghanistan,  in December 2005 befriended a stray puppy he named Cinnamon.  Adopting Cinnamon was against military regulations,  but Cinnamon quickly became a base mascot anyhow. When Feffer and other members of his unit were due to be rotated back to the U.S.,  Feffer and his wife Alice arranged for a civilian dog handler who was employed by the U.S. military to escort Cinnamon to Chicago via Bishkek,  the capital of Kyrgyzstan,  a former Soviet Republic that borders Afghanistan.

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, November/December 2010:

The Dog Who Couldn’t Stop Loving
by Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson
Harper (10 E. 53rd St., New York, NY 10022), 2010. 239 pages,
hardcover. $25.99.

Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson in The Dog Who Couldn’t Stop
Loving joins a growing pack of authors who in the fall/winter 2010
publishing season attempt to reprise past best-sellers with a volume
focusing on a favorite dog.

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