The $60,000 Dog

The $60,000 Dog PDF Author: Lauren Slater
Publisher: Beacon Press
ISBN: 0807001880
Category : Pets
Languages : en
Pages : 265

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Book Description
A stunning new book about the role of animals in our lives, by a popular and acclaimed writer From the time she is nine years old, biking to the farmland outside her suburban home, where she discovers a disquieting world of sleeping cows and a “Private Way” full of the wondrous and creepy creatures of the wild—spiders, deer, moles, chipmunks, and foxes—Lauren Slater finds in animals a refuge from her troubled life. As she matures, her attraction to animals strengthens and grows more complex and compelling even as her family is falling to pieces around her. Slater spends a summer at horse camp, where she witnesses the alternating horrific and loving behavior of her instructor toward the animals in her charge and comes to question the bond that so often develops between females and their equines. Slater’s questions follow her to a foster family, her own parents no longer able to care for her. A pet raccoon, rescued from a hole in the wall, teaches her how to feel at home away from home. The two Shiba Inu puppies Slater adopts years later, against her husband’s will, grow increasingly important to her as she ages and her family begins to grow. Slater’s husband is a born skeptic and possesses a sternly scientific view of animals as unconscious, primitive creatures, one who insists “that an animal’s worth is roughly equivalent to its edibility.” As one of her dogs, Lila, goes blind and the medical bills and monthly expenses begin to pour in, he calculates the financial burden of their canine family member and finds that Lila has cost them about $60,000, not to mention the approximately 400 pounds of feces she has deposited in their yard. But when Benjamin begins to suffer from chronic pain, Lauren is convinced it is Lila’s resilience and the dog’s quick adaptation to her blindness that draws her husband out of his own misery and motivates him to try to adjust to his situation. Ben never becomes a true believer or a die-hard animal lover, but his story and the stories Lauren tells of her own bond with animals convince her that our connections with the furry, the four-legged, the exoskeleton-ed, or the winged may be just as priceless as our human relationships. The $60,000 Dog is Lauren Slater’s intimate manifesto on the unique, invaluable, and often essential contributions animals make to our lives. As a psychologist, a reporter, an amateur naturalist, and above all an enormously gifted writer, she draws us into the stories of her passion for animals that are so much more than pets. She describes her intense love for the animals in her life without apology and argues, finally, that the works of Darwin and other evolutionary biologists prove that, when it comes to worth, animals are equal, and in some senses even superior, to human beings.

The $60,000 Dog

The $60,000 Dog PDF Author: Lauren Slater
Publisher: Beacon Press
ISBN: 0807001880
Category : Pets
Languages : en
Pages : 265

Get Book Here

Book Description
A stunning new book about the role of animals in our lives, by a popular and acclaimed writer From the time she is nine years old, biking to the farmland outside her suburban home, where she discovers a disquieting world of sleeping cows and a “Private Way” full of the wondrous and creepy creatures of the wild—spiders, deer, moles, chipmunks, and foxes—Lauren Slater finds in animals a refuge from her troubled life. As she matures, her attraction to animals strengthens and grows more complex and compelling even as her family is falling to pieces around her. Slater spends a summer at horse camp, where she witnesses the alternating horrific and loving behavior of her instructor toward the animals in her charge and comes to question the bond that so often develops between females and their equines. Slater’s questions follow her to a foster family, her own parents no longer able to care for her. A pet raccoon, rescued from a hole in the wall, teaches her how to feel at home away from home. The two Shiba Inu puppies Slater adopts years later, against her husband’s will, grow increasingly important to her as she ages and her family begins to grow. Slater’s husband is a born skeptic and possesses a sternly scientific view of animals as unconscious, primitive creatures, one who insists “that an animal’s worth is roughly equivalent to its edibility.” As one of her dogs, Lila, goes blind and the medical bills and monthly expenses begin to pour in, he calculates the financial burden of their canine family member and finds that Lila has cost them about $60,000, not to mention the approximately 400 pounds of feces she has deposited in their yard. But when Benjamin begins to suffer from chronic pain, Lauren is convinced it is Lila’s resilience and the dog’s quick adaptation to her blindness that draws her husband out of his own misery and motivates him to try to adjust to his situation. Ben never becomes a true believer or a die-hard animal lover, but his story and the stories Lauren tells of her own bond with animals convince her that our connections with the furry, the four-legged, the exoskeleton-ed, or the winged may be just as priceless as our human relationships. The $60,000 Dog is Lauren Slater’s intimate manifesto on the unique, invaluable, and often essential contributions animals make to our lives. As a psychologist, a reporter, an amateur naturalist, and above all an enormously gifted writer, she draws us into the stories of her passion for animals that are so much more than pets. She describes her intense love for the animals in her life without apology and argues, finally, that the works of Darwin and other evolutionary biologists prove that, when it comes to worth, animals are equal, and in some senses even superior, to human beings.

Uggie--My Story

Uggie--My Story PDF Author: Uggie
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1476700486
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 206

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Book Description
A heartwarming memoir by the Jack Russell Terrier that starred in The Artist and Water for Elephants. Uggie’s memoir offers readers the true rags-to-riches tale of one ordinary Jack Russell Terrier who made it big in Hollywood. For the first time, Uggie tells his story of rising from humble beginnings as an abandoned shelter dog to being adopted by esteemed trainer Omar Von Muller. Uggie details his time starring in commercials for everything from Kia cars to Bud Light. Uggie eventually broke into the film world with his appearance in Mr. Fixit in 2006. He went on to appear in Wassup Rockers and Life is Ruff. Uggie got his first serious film role in 2011's Water for Elephants where he starred alongside Reese Witherspoon and Robert Pattinson. It was not, however, until 2012's The Artist that Uggie really dazzled audiences with his talents. In his memoir, Uggie will talk about life on the set of the Oscar-winning film and the role that many said should have earned him an Oscar. Uggie's memoir doesn't just hit on his career highlights, it also takes a candid look at his his private demons: overcoming a painful past as a cat-murderer and finding redemption; living with shaking syndrome; his regret at never siring any pups before being neutered. Uggie's memoir will include not just biographical information, but also advice from the dog himself. As is seen in his dazzling performance in The Artist, Uggie is an incredibly talented performer. He honed his craft while touring South America each year as part of The Incredible Dog Show, and in his memoir, he will spend several chapters sharing practical training and dieting tips that he has developed over the years.

It's Just a Dog

It's Just a Dog PDF Author: Russ Ryan
Publisher: Createspace Independent Publishing Platform
ISBN: 9781484042014
Category : Dog adoption
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
Charlie Keefe is a world famous dog painter. Unfortunately, Charlie's belove muse, Pete, his fun-loving Jack Russell terrier, has just died and he's totally devastated by the loss of his furry best friend. After months of grieving, Charlie reluctantly agrees to foster a new puppy from the local shelter, a cute King Charles Cavalier named Brownie. Charlie falls head over heels for this new puppy as well as being attracted to Janelle Jordan, the head hound at the dog rescue. Complications arise when the ghost of Pete appears one night to haunt him and Brownie setting off a bizarre chain of events that throws Charlie's life, career and entire belief system into chaos.

Coyote America

Coyote America PDF Author: Dan Flores
Publisher: Basic Books
ISBN: 0465098533
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 289

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Book Description
The New York Times best-selling account of how coyotes--long the target of an extermination policy--spread to every corner of the United States Finalist for the PEN/E.O. Wilson Literary Science Writing Award "A masterly synthesis of scientific research and personal observation." -Wall Street Journal Legends don't come close to capturing the incredible story of the coyote. In the face of centuries of campaigns of annihilation employing gases, helicopters, and engineered epidemics, coyotes didn't just survive, they thrived, expanding across the continent from Alaska to New York. In the war between humans and coyotes, coyotes have won, hands-down. Coyote America is the illuminating five-million-year biography of this extraordinary animal, from its origins to its apotheosis. It is one of the great epics of our time.

When Bad Things Happen to Good People

When Bad Things Happen to Good People PDF Author: Harold S. Kushner
Publisher: Random House Digital, Inc.
ISBN: 0805241930
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 224

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Book Description
Offers an inspirational and compassionate approach to understanding the problems of life, and argues that we should continue to believe in God's fairness.

The New Work of Dogs

The New Work of Dogs PDF Author: Jon Katz
Publisher: Villard
ISBN: 1588361675
Category : Pets
Languages : en
Pages : 261

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Book Description
“Sometimes human-dog relationships are simple, unrelated to the emotional lives and histories of either species. But often people acquire and love dogs with little awareness that they might have complex and revealing reasons for choosing the dog or pet they choose, loving it the way they do.” Writing about his own dogs in A Dog Year, Jon Katz became immersed in a larger community of dog lovers and came to realize that in an increasingly fragmented and disconnected society, dogs are often treated not as pets, but as family members and human surrogates. The New Work of Dogs profiles a dozen such relationships in a New Jersey town, like the story of Harry, a Welsh corgi who provides sustaining emotional strength for a woman battling terminal breast cancer; Cherokee, companion of a man who has few human friends and doesn’t know how to talk to his own family; the Divorced Dogs Club, whose funny, acerbic, and sometimes angry women turn to their dogs to help them rebuild their lives; and Betty Jean, the frantic founder of a tiny rescue group that has saved five hundred dogs from abuse or abandonment in recent years. Drawn from hundreds of interviews and conversations with dog owners and lovers, breeders, veterinarians, rescuers, trainers, behaviorists, and psychiatrists, The New Work of Dogs combines compelling personal narratives with a penetrating look at human/animal attachment, and questions whether this relationship shift is an entirely positive phenomenon for both species. Katz offers us a portrait of a community, and by extension a country, that is turning to its pets for emotional support and stability—a difficult job that more and more dogs are expected to do every day. The New Work of Dogs is a provocative and moving exploration of the evolving role dogs play in a changing and uncertain world. BONUS: This edition contains an excerpt from Jon Katz's Going Home.

How Dogs Love Us

How Dogs Love Us PDF Author: Gregory Berns
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
ISBN: 0544114515
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 271

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Book Description
A neuroscientist finally and definitively answers the age-old question: What is my dog thinking?

The Cruelest Miles: The Heroic Story of Dogs and Men in a Race Against an Epidemic

The Cruelest Miles: The Heroic Story of Dogs and Men in a Race Against an Epidemic PDF Author: Gay Salisbury
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
ISBN: 0393076210
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 340

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Book Description
"A stirring tale of survival, thanks to man's best friend." —Seattle Times When a deadly diphtheria epidemic swept through Nome, Alaska, in 1925, the local doctor knew that without a fresh batch of antitoxin, his patients would die. The lifesaving serum was a thousand miles away, the port was icebound, and planes couldn't fly in blizzard conditions—only the dogs could make it. The heroic dash of dog teams across the Alaskan wilderness to Nome inspired the annual Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race and immortalized Balto, the lead dog of the last team whose bronze statue still stands in New York City's Central Park. This is the greatest dog story, never fully told until now.

I Saw the Dog

I Saw the Dog PDF Author: Alexandra Aikhenvald
Publisher: Profile Books
ISBN: 1782833218
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 155

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Book Description
Every language in the world shares a few common features: we can ask a question, say something belongs to us, and tell someone what to do. But beyond that, our languages are richly and almost infinitely varied: a French speaker can't conceive of a world that isn't split into un and une, male and female, while Estonians have only one word for both men and women: tema. In Dyirbal, an Australian language, things might be masculine, feminine, neuter - or edible vegetable. Every language tells us something about the people who use it. In I Saw the Dog, linguist Alexandra Aikhenvald takes us from the remote swamplands of Papua New Guinea to the university campuses of North America to illuminate the vital importance of names, the value of being able to say exactly what you mean, what language can tell us about what it means to be human - and what we lose when they disappear forever.

My Dog Ate My Homework! (REVISION)

My Dog Ate My Homework! (REVISION) PDF Author: Bruce Lansky
Publisher: Running Press Adult
ISBN: 9781416989134
Category : Juvenile Nonfiction
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
My Dog Ate My Homework is the first collection of Bruce Lansky’s own poetry. This book helped make Lansky’s reputation as a consistently entertaining poet with a unique voice and style. His poems are about someone named “I” or “me” who so resembles the readers, their siblings, friends, parents, pets, and teachers – they think Lansky is writing about them. In this book, Lansky introduces us to: -a “too friendly” dog who should be using Scope -a teacher who resembles her students in her avoidance of homework -a kid who thinks his cat isn’t smart because it won’t come when called and won’t shake, beg or fetch -a young “Romeo” who “climbed up the door and opened the stairs” after his first kiss - a youngthter with a looth tooth who tellth a painful thtory about a bike cwath -kids who start wishing their horrible old cook would come back after a new gourmet chef is hired -two siblings would like their parents to know about each other Lansky also offers a practical lesson on how to delay your bedtime and a sure cure for thumbsucking. This book also includes several, charming fill-in-the blank poems perfect for morning announcements on the school P.A. plus some generic New Year’s resolutions you can use in a pinch. Because Lansky’s poetry is about them, kids find it hilarious – and don’t be surprised if reading this book puts a smile on your face, too.