Category: Reviews

BOOKS: The New Holistic Way for Dogs & Cats

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August 2010:

The New Holistic Way for Dogs & Cats
by Paul McCutcheon, DVM and Susan Weinstein
Random House (1745 Broadway, New York, NY 10019), 2009. 256
pages, paperback. $18.99.

“In the new holistic perspective, a truly healthy dog or
cat will have all systems functioning in the home that is her
body–her own living terrain,” write Paul McCutcheon, DVM, and
Susan Weinstein.
Holistic medicine traces back to the ancient Chinese method
of treating diseases with herbal remedies. In recent decades the
holistic approach has crossed into western veterinary medicine. A
holistic practitioner treats the whole body; a holistic veterinarian
treats the whole animal. McCutcheon and Weinstein contend that all
living creatures can heal themselves from most conditions. Pet
owners can aid the healing.

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BOOKS: Deadly Kingdom: The book of dangerous animals

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August 2010:

Deadly Kingdom: The book of dangerous animals
by Gordon Grice
Random House (1745 Broadway, New York, NY 10019), 2010. 352
pages, hardcover. $27.00.

Almost all animals can be dangerous, shows Gordon Grice in
Deadly Kingdom.
Dogs, among the most familiar species to humans, inflict an
estimated 4.7 million reported bites per year in the U.S., causing
at least 800,000 people, mostly children, to require medical help.
Currently more than 30 Americans per year die from dog bites. Dozens
more are horribly disfigured. Abroad, dog bites are still the most
common vector for transmitting rabies to humans.

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BOOKS: Swimming with Piranhas at Feeding Time

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August 2010:

Swimming with Piranhas at Feeding Time:
My Life Doing Dumb Things With Animals
by Richard Conniff
W.W. Norton & Co. (500 5th Ave., New York, NY 10110), 2010. 304
pages, paperback. $15.95.

Swimming with Piranhas opens with author Richard Conniff and
a park ranger in Botswana looking for African wild dogs. Often
maligned, Lycaon pictus is more closely related to wolves than to
domestic dogs. As with wolves, Conniff explains, “humans
persecuted them into extinction over most of their range.” Only
about 5,000 remain. Playful and gentle with each other, African wild
dogs travel in packs and rarely come into contact with humans. They
have a highly evolved social structure. Despite efforts to protect
the remaining African wild dogs on wildlife preserves, they suffer
from fragmented habitat, diseases introduced by domestic dogs, and
continued hostility from livestock ranchers and herders. They often
end up as lion lunch, too.

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BOOKS: Animals As Persons: Essays on the abolition of animal exploitation

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 2010:

Animals As Persons: Essays on the abolition
of animal exploitation by Gary L. Francione
Columbia University Press, (61 West 62nd St., New York, NY 10023), 2008.
235 pages, paperback.

Animals As Persons anthologizes seven of legal scholar Gary
Francione’s best known examinations of the intersection of law and
animal rights philosophy.
Francione rarely directly addresses the legal and
philosophical rationales for animal exploitation. He does, however,
speak toward them through extensive critiques of the arguments of
Peter Singer and Tom Regan, whose Animal Liberation (1976) and The
Case for Animal Rights (1983) introduced animal rights theory to
mainstream academic discourse; Josephine Donovan, who as co-editor
of Beyond Animal Rights (1996) made the most ambitious of many
attempts to meld animal rights philosophy with feminism; and Cass
Sunstein, who co-edited the 2004 textbook anthology Animal Rights:
Current Debates & New Directions, before becoming director of the
Office of Information & Regulatory Affairs for U.S. President Barack
Obama.

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BOOKS: The Link Between Animal Abuse & Human Violence

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 2010:

The Link Between Animal Abuse
& Human Violence
Edited by Andrew Linzey
Sussex Academic Press (P.O. Box 139, Eastbourne, East Sussex BN24
9BP, U.K.), 2009. 300 pages, hardcover. $84.95.

Thirty-six professionals, mostly well known in the field,
contribute to The Link Between Animal Abuse and Human Violence.
Hundreds and perhaps thousands of references offer theories about
animal abuse.
Why do some five-year-old boys who stomp kittens to death
grow up to be ax murderers while others lead constructive lives? No
one really knows, but there is a lot of speculation. Marie Louise
Peterson and David P. Farrington in chapter two suggest that children
who are cruel to animals lack empathy. Why they lack empathy is open
to speculation. Is it biological, environmental, or both?

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BOOKS: Forbidden Creatures

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 2010:

Forbidden creatures
by Peter Laufer, Ph.D.
Lyons Press (246 Goose Lane, Guilford, CT 06437), 2010.
272 pages, hardcover. $19.95.

“The chimp killed my friend,” screamed Sandra Herold into
the telephone on February 16, 2009 as her pet chimp Travis mauled
her friend Charla Nash. Nash had come to help corral the
out-of-control animal, who had previously behaved well for her,
but Travis pulled her from her car, bit and clawed off most of her
face, and tore her hands off. Cornered upon arrival in his patrol
car, police officer Frank Chiafri shot Travis dead after Travis
pulled the driver’s side door open.

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BOOKS: Kids Making a Difference for Animals

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 2010:

Kids Making a Difference for Animals
by Nancy Furstinger & Sheryl L. Pipe
John Wiley (111 River Street, Hoboken, NJ 07030), 2009.
(Order c/o <www.aspcaonlinestore.com>.)
84 pages, hardcover. $12.99.

Kids Making a Difference for Animals is inspirational,
heartwarming, and reduced me to tears, sharing examples of children
and teens committed to improving life for animals, both domestic and
wild.

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BOOKS: Naming Nature: The clash between instinct & science

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 2010:

Naming Nature: The clash between instinct & science
by Carol Kaesuk Yoon
W.W. Norton & Co. (500 5th Ave., New York, NY 10110),
2009. 344 pages, hardcover. $27.95.

Taxonomy is the science of naming and cataloguing life forms.
What taxonomists do is order biological knowledge. The 18th century
botanist Carolus Linnaeus is widely recognized as the originator of
scientific taxonomy, but as Carol Kaesuk Yoon points out in Naming
Nature, Linnaeus’ contribution was chiefly that he found a means of
reconciling older taxonomic constructs to accommodate the findings of
the Age of Discovery.
Heraldic taxonomy, ranking species as “higher” and “lower”
according to recognized traits, had been recognized in various forms
throughout Europe, Asia, and much of Africa for thousands of years
before Linnaeus.

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BOOKS: Filling the Ark: Animal Welfare in Disasters

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 2010:

Filling the Ark: Animal Welfare in Disasters by Leslie Irvine
Temple University Press (1852 N. 10th St., Philadelphia,
PA 19122), 2009. 176 pages, hardcover. $24.50.

Who fills the ark in time of disaster? Leslie Irvine in
Filling the Ark examines who is evacuated and who is left behind?
Practically everyone old enough to watch TV remembers
gut-wrenching scenes of National Guard troops yanking bewildered dogs
and cats away from the arms of hysterical children during the
evacuation of New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina hit in late August
2005. Some pets were shot in the streets by sheriff’s deputies.
Charges against the deputies were dropped in 2008. Other animals
were tied up and shot sadistically in a school that had served as an
evacuation center. No one was charged with those killings. Tens of
thousands of pets were left to fend for themselves. Many were
rescued by the largest and longest sustained animal rescue operation
in the U.S. ever, but many others died before help could arrive.

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