BOOKS: Heritage of Care

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, March 2010:

Heritage of Care:
The American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals
by Marion S. Lane & Stephen L. Zawistowki
Praeger Publishers (88 Post Road West, Westport, CT 06881), 2008.
185 pages, hardcover. $39.95.

“The ASPCA story is one that I’ve been
trying to tell in one way or another for the past
19 years,” writes American SPCA executive vice
president Stephen L. Zawistoski in introducing
Heritage of Care, co-authored with former ASPCA
AnmalWatch editor Marion S. Lane. Working
primarily from the ASPCA’s own archives,
Zawistowski recalls, “We decided that we had
neither the time nor training to write a
scholarly history of the organization. We agreed
that what we wanted to do was spin a yarn,”
covering the first 140 years of the history of
the ASPCA as informatively and honestly as
possible.

Read more

BOOKS: Cat Be Good

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, January/February 2010:

Cat Be Good:
A Foolproof Guide for the Complete Care and Training of Your Cat
Third Edition
by Annie Bruce
2000, 2003, 2005 — Free online at <www.CatBeGood.com>; 208 pages.

After selling out three printed editions in less than 10
years, Colorado cat advocate Annie Bruce has now made Cat Be Good
available for free online.
While the priceless advice in Cat Be Good is now freely
accessible, a free cat is never free of expenses, Bruce cautions.
Who pays for the food, litter and vet bills? Cats also need
scratching posts and toys to keep them occupied, and usually are
happiest with cat companions, who bring their own expenses. Keeping
a cat–or several–is a lifetime responsibility, Bruce emphasizes.

Read more

BOOKS: Rescue Matters

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, January/February 2010:

Rescue Matters:
How to find, foster and rehome companion animals
by Sheila Webster Boneham, Ph.D.
Alpine Publications (38262 Linman Road, Crawford, CO 81415), 2009.
166 pages, paperback. $14.95.

Sheila Boneham recognizes that animal rescue is central to
the volunteers involved. They give up evenings to transport unwanted
animals from shelters to foster homes. Huge chunks of their weekends
are spent at adoption events. They may skip a holiday dinner to pick
up a stray dog who has been hit by a car. Hearts get broken along
the way too, when favorite animals don’t survive.
Rescuing animals can be rewarding, but it can also be
challenging and dangerous. And it’s not for everyone. There is a
lot more than plucking a stray dog from an animal shelter or saving a
cat from a band of hoodlums. Be prepared for hard work.

Read more

BOOKS: Scream Like Banshee

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, January/February 2010:

Scream Like Banshee
by Tamira Ci Thayne
Dogs Deserve Better
(P.O. Box 23,
Tipton, PA 16684), 2009.
172 pages, paperback. $14.98.

Fostering a dog is one of the hardest things you’ll ever do,
says Tamira C. Thayne, founder and president of Dogs Deserve Better.
Thayne, formerly known as Tammy Grimes, offers tales and tips about
dealing with unwanted dogs, many of whom have lived chained to
fences, doghouses, or trees.
As a child, Thayne always liked animals. She grew up to be
caring and compassionate. A chained black Labrador named Worthless
changed her life. Thayne passed Worthless on her daily drive to
work. Sometimes she saw the dog shivering in the blustery
Pennsylvania winters, his chain snagged in debris that prevented
him from reaching his dog house. In the summer Worthless panted
under the harsh summer sun. His owners finally relented, after
several years, and gave Worthless to Thayne. Renamed Bo, the old
dog lived only a short time longer, but his last few months were
surrounded by love and comfort. He died unchained.

Read more

BOOKS: Strategic Action for Animals

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, January/February 2010:

Strategic Action for Animals:
A handbook for strategic movement building,
organizing and activism for animal liberation
by Melanie Joy
Lantern Books (128 2nd Place, Garden Suite,
Brooklyn, NY 11231), 2008. 176 pages,
paperback. $20.00.

“The animal liberation movementŠneeds to
raise public awareness so that citizens become
mobilized to demand change,” believes Melanie
Joy.
Public awareness of the major issues in
animal advocacy has already long since been
accomplished. References to animal advocacy
themes and concerns are now ubiquitous in prime
time television, popular films, music, comedy
monologues, and the metaphors of common
speech-and have been for decades. How to
mobilize all this awareness into an effective
demand for change is the continuing problem.

Read more

BOOKS: Search for the Golden Moon Bear

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, November/December 2009:

Search for the Golden Moon Bear

by Sy Montgomery
Chelsea Green Publishing (85 N. Main St., Suite 120, White River
Jct., Vermont 05001), 2002, 2009.
336 pages, paperback. $19.95.
No bear like the golden moon bear is known to science, says
Sy Montgomery–but science, so far, says the golden moon bear is
just a rare color morph of the Asiatic black bear, also known as the
moon bear for a crescent-shaped patch of light-colored chest fur.
Hoping that the golden moon bear might be a new species or a
subspecies, Montgomery and Northwestern University professor of
evolutionary biology Gary J. Galbreath in 1999 trekked through much
of Southeast Asia seeking material evidence. They found none, yet
Montgomery’s 2002 book Search for the Golden Moon Bear became a
cryptozoological classic. Rarely mentioned during the 40 years that
the U.S. had troops and aircraft in Southeast Asia, the golden moon
bear has become one of the best-known undocumented animals that
anyone still seriously contends might once have existed.

Read more

BOOKS: Walking with the Great Apes

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, November/December 2009:

Walking with the Great Apes
by Sy Montgomery
Chelsea Green Publishing (85 N. Main St., Suite 120,
White River Jct., Vermont 05001), 1991, 2009
264 pages, paperback. $17.95.

Jane Goodall, asserts Walking with the Great Apes author Sy
Montgomery, is the most easily recognizable living scientist in the
western world, primarily from her 50 years of researching and
advocating for chimpanzees.
Dian Fossey, who began her work at about the same time but
reached global prominence sooner, was murdered in 1985. Though her
killer has never been prosecuted, popular belief is that she was
killed in retaliation for her efforts to protect mountain gorillas
from poachers in Rwanda.

Read more

“Reality TV” & Rescue Ink Unleashed

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, November/December 2009:
“Reality TV” & Rescue Ink Unleashed
National Geographic Channel: 10 p.m. Fridays. Debuted September 25, 2009

After the success of Animal Precinct, Rescue Ink Unleashed
was inevitable. Since the beginning of television, each successful
series theme has been followed by variations, trying to emulate the
aspects of the prototype that captured an audience, while adding
twists that the producers hope might attract even more viewers.
Typically the successful prototype is a gritty realistic
drama. After knock-offs exploit that approach to the point of
running out of ideas, caricatures follow. Some are forthrightly
cartoons: The Flintstones (1960) followed The Honeymooners (1955).
Others are merely cartoonish in live-action format: Charlie’s Angels
(1976), for instance, was a distant descendant of the cop show
format pioneered by Dragnet (1951).

Read more

BOOKS: Bombproof

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, November/December 2009:

Bombproof: A true story of second chances
by Leana Beasley & Stephen Sawicki
L’Universe Inc. (1663 Liberty Drive,
Bloomington, IN 47403; www.iuniverse.com),
2009.
288 pages, paperback; $18.95. E-book download: $6.00.

Bronson, a young Rottweiler mix, almost
died at a Washington animal shelter. But a dog
trainer for the Prison Pet Partnership Program at
the Washington Corrections Center in Pierce
County sensed something special about Bronson,
formerly known as Bruce, as she scouted the
shelter for candidate dogs to be trained by
inmates to assist the disabled. Sergeant Barbara
Davenport, master canine trainer for the
program, chose to give him a chance.”

Read more

1 22 23 24 25 26 95