Animal Books I've Read

My experiences taking the Veterinary Assistant and Veterinary Technology programs at Penn Foster.

Tuesday, October 23, 2007 , late evening

What Pets Do While You’re At Work

Be careful what you wish for.

I love reading, and I love new products, and I’ve always wished that publishers and pet product companies would send me stuff to review.  At SuperZoo, I made a point of going around to all the book publishing companies, giving them my business card, and requesting review titles.  I get quite a few books to review via our website about author Dan Brown, but they don’t interest me nearly as much as books about animal issues.  It shouldn’t surprise anyone that I was thrilled when Simon and Schuster contacted me a couple of weeks ago and asked me to review their new title, What Pets Do While You’re at Work (written by Jason Bergund and Bev West).

Now, I could write a “best case scenario” review and make the book seem like something you should buy for yourself, or for someone else, but I wouldn’t be doing you any favours.  I’d just be doing myself favours, and hoping I’d get more books to review.  The fact is, this book just isn’t very good.  It’s designed to take advantage of the popularity of other really good titles, like Bad Cat, but the premise is kind of weak, and the authors struggle to stick to one consistent theme.  Sometimes there are funny photos captioned with things that your naughty pet might do while it’s home alone, but other times the pictures are just of cats or dogs sleeping, or sitting around, the captions try too hard to make the picture seem hilarious.  Lots of the book just isn’t funny.  Some of the photos are tightly themed, like, ‘While Bob is out flipping burgers, his dog Chuckles is...”, but other photos seem completely irrelevent to the concept that the pets are supposed to be home, alone, unsupervised.  Some of the pets in the photos are captioned as if they’re speaking the photographer, which kinda spoils the “home alone” effect.

The most disappointing thing about this book is the photos.  I assume the authors recruited pictures from people via the Internet, and given the available pool of pet owners, the photos are surprisingly poor.  Many are poor quality—blurry, shot with a camera phone, etc.—but others are shameless ripoffs of common photos we’ve all seen as avatars, or passed around through email messages.  Uncredited photos used in this book included the well-known ”sniper kitten”, and ”cat with grapefruit (or other citrus) peel on head like a hat”.  It’s pretty lame to use those photos in a professionally published book, especially when the photos aren’t attributed to any particular photographer or graphic artist.  If you ask me, you shouldn’t profit off photos if you haven’t obtained permission to use them.  And were those photos absolutely necessary for inclusion?  They’re funny, but they don’t add much to the theme, and I’d rather see more candid photos of real pets than posed shots, or Photoshop fakes.  There are a couple of Photoshopped pics which use the same original cat picture, fer cryin’ out loud.

I really do enjoy funny books about animals, and I’m looking forward to the print version of I Can Has Cheezburger whenever that is released.  They’ve got a clear-cut theme and hundreds of photos to choose from, and I really hope they’ll publish the best ones.  As for Simon and Schuster, I recommend their upcoming title, ”Old Dogs are the Best Dogs”.  It’s going to be a photography book of senior dogs, and even though I haven’t seen it, I know it will be better than “What Pets Do While You’re at Work”.

Posted by Leigh-Ann on 10/23 at 10:54 PM
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Tuesday, April 03, 2007 , the wee hours

An Unlikely Cat Lady

The title of this entry once described me, but in this case, it’s the name of a book by Nina Malkin.  I thought I should review it now because it’s sitting on my desk, and I’m on a book review roll.

The author of An Unlikely Cat Lady is a cat owner in Brooklyn, NY.  She has two indoor cats, but suddenly notices that a colony of ferals has taken up residence in her neighbourhood.  The colony includes kittens, which she tries unsuccessfully to tame, so she learns about TNR.  Eventually, the author traps, neuters, and returns almost the entire colony at her own expense, and provides food and shelter for them.  While I really admire the author for what she did, some of her attitudes frustrated me.  For one thing, it’s awful to follow along as the cats in the colony wander off and vanish (and assumedly die).  I’m not sure what the author could have done about that, although my opinion was that she could have easily tamed the “feral” kittens if she’d just brought them indoors.  Their mother was stray-but-tame, so I’m sure the kittens (less than eight weeks old when first discovered), could have had a better future if not left outside.  This is probably something you learn with experience, but still, it was sad to keep reading as the window for taming the kittens closed, and they became true feral strays.  Most of the adults were perhaps beyond help (although I inferred that the kittens’ mother was also quite tame), but the kittens could have been given a normal life.  By the time the author decides that she loves one of the kittens so much that she wants it to live inside, the cat is far too old to adjust.

My biggest beef with the book was the author’s hatred of a neighbourhood stray male cat, who she names, ”Yeff Smeef”.  Yeff is unneutered, nasty, and probably unhealthy - all descriptions of him suggest that he’s ugly and covered in fight wounds.  While a cat like Yeff would be my pet project (no pun intended), Nina Malkin despises him, chasing him out of her yard, and trying to avoid feeding him.  When she accidentally traps Yeff while doing TNR, she releases him instead of getting him neutered.  This is horribly ironic, given that the point of trapping was to catch a female cat before she could be impregnated by Yeff (the local Lothario).  Yeff always seems frightened and alone when he’s mentioned, and I wanted to reach out and help him myself.  By the end of the book, he’s vanished too, and the author assumes he’s dead.  She actually made plans to trap and neuter Yeff shortly before his disappearance, but she admits that she’s doing it in hopes the neutering clinic will offer to put the cat to sleep instead.

If Nina Malkin had just left out the stuff about Yeff Smeef, I would have enjoyed the book more.  I love dark humour, and don’t even mind the occasional tasteless joke about animals, but I didn’t like reading about someone purposely neglecting an animal need, and enjoying it.  Maybe the author exaggerated her feelings about the cat to make a better story, but it didn’t make it better for me.  If anything, it makes me want to make a donation to a place like Alley Cat Allies, in Yeff Smeef’s memory.  Yeff, if you’d wandered into my yard, I would have tried to save you.

Posted by Leigh-Ann on 04/03 at 02:09 AM
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Monday, April 02, 2007 , evening

Pet food cookbook reviews

I’ve finished reading five different cookbooks for dogs and cats, in my quest to find the perfect pet food recipes.  I’ll give you a quick run-down of the titles I read, and maybe one or two of them will interest you.

  • Whole Pet Diet: Eight Weeks to Great Health for Dogs And Cats by Andi Brown:  This book was my favourite, and I just ordered a copy to send to my mother.  It’s an entire “lifestyle makeover” book for both dogs and cats, and each chapter represents a week in which a pet owner can introduce a new phase of the “makeover”.  One chapter is devoted to making a special vitamin and mineral supplement, one chapter is devoted to dietary change, etc.  Entertaining stories about dogs and cats who were transformed by the recipes in the book are interspersed throughout.  I enjoyed this book because it offers material for both dogs and cats, and because if you want to ignore the eight-week program plan, each chapter still stands on its own and is useful.  In other words, you don’t need to complete the tasks in chapter four to be able to follow the plans in chapter five.  I was thrilled when I realized the book was authored by the inventor of “Spot’s Stew”, because that’s one of my favourite pet foods, and the book contains the simple recipe so I can make my own.  There are a number of other recipes for entrees and treats, but the main Spot’s Stew recipe can form the basis of any dog or cat diet.  All the recipes in the book are for cooked food - the author doesn’t feel the benefits of feeding raw outweigh the risks.  While I haven’t reached any conclusions about whether cooked or raw is better, I currently feel more comfortable preparing cooked food than preparing raw food. 


  • Whole Health for Happy Cats: A Guide to Keeping Your Cat Naturally Healthy, Happy, and Well-Fed by Sandy Arora:  As you can tell by the title, this is a book exclusively for cats, and the author advocates a raw diet.  It’s more than a cookbook though, and is really a “total care” book for cat owners.  There’s lots of thorough information about homeopathic health care, behavioural issues, grooming tips, etc.  I’d definitely recommend it for anyone looking for an all-purpose cat care manual, and it’s full of great photos, too.  There are two chapters about food, including some recipes, and while the author recommends a raw diet, she still gives suggestions on how to choose a good commercial diet, and how to modify the raw diet recipes if you prefer to cook them.  This book is good addition to any pet owner’s library, regardless of what you decide to feed.


  • Real Food for Cats: 50 Vet-Approved Recipes to Please the Feline Gastronome by Patti Delmonte and Anne Davis:  This is a very cute book, full of warm colours and incredible illustrations.  I’d say the illustrations are the star of the book, because they grace every page (here’s a link to the artist’s website).  The problem with the book is that the recipes are not meant to be a complete diet, and are only suggested as occasional treats.  I wouldn’t have known that if I hadn’t read the introduction to the book (written by a veterinarian), so please keep that in mind if you purchase this title.  You’ll find great recipes for entrees and treats, but since you can’t serve them every day, the book would have to be for someone who enjoys cooking as a hobby.  The section I enjoyed most was one which offered recipes for people, along with the same recipe modified for cats.  For example, you can make Chicken Cordon Bleu for both you and your cat, with the cat recipe containing just some slight modifications.  The book might make a nice gift for someone who enjoys cooking and likes to spoil their cat.  I could see a lot of cats refusing to eat some of these recipes, though - you’d have to give them to a cat who’s a good eater and not fussy about different tastes and textures.


  • Real Food for Dogs: 50 Vet-Approved Recipes to Please the Canine Gastronome by Arden Moore and Anne Davis:  This is the companion guide to the book of recipes for cats, above, and it also features wonderful colours and illustrations.  It’s pretty much the same as the cat recipe book - a variety of recipes, plus some recipes for people, but not something you’re likely to want to cook from on a daily basis.  The book requires so many different ingredients that I consider it more of a novelty item than a feeding guide.  Both the cat and dog book feature a section of recipes for pets with various ailments, like digestive problems, and those recipes might be the most valuable thing (besides the pretty pictures).


  • Food Pets Die For: Shocking Facts About Pet Food by Ann Martin:  This last book isn’t a cookbook.  I just realized I’ve been saying that I read five “cookbooks”, when I really just read four, plus this title.  This book is a must-read for pet owners - a look into the pet industry and into bags/cans of pet food.  Some of the information is outdated, but the book has an “update” section in the 2003 edition, so you’ll be able to see how the industry has changed since the book was first published in 1997.  Lots of the information in the book is disturbing (for example, you’ll find out the origin of those old rumours about euthanized dogs and cats being made into food), but it’s important for pet owners to understand the source of what they feed.  I think this book has been credited for influencing positive change in the pet food industry, and as we obviously need change again, this might be a good time for all of us to read up on the subject.  The book does contain some recipes for cooked food diets, as the author is opposed to feeding raw.  I’ve seen criticisms of the recipes, though - someone on Amazon suggested the the calcium/phosphorus ratio in one recipe was incorrect.  So, read the book for the pet food industry information, and consider the recipes a starting point in your research.

The only topic not covered by any of the books above is raw diets for dogs.  For that, I’ve got Carina’s book, Raw Dog Food: Make It Easy for You and Your Dog, as well as Richard Pitcairn’s book, Dr. Pitcairn’s New Complete Guide to Natural Health for Dogs and Cats.  I find parts of Dr. Pitcairn’s book to be a bit “over the top”, but it’s still a valuable reference, and will help foster critical thinking about topics like vaccinations.

Posted by Leigh-Ann on 04/02 at 08:15 PM
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Friday, January 13, 2006 , evening

Mutts

Flippy recently ordered me a wonderful birthday gift from the Mutts Comics store, and much to our surprise, in with the item she bought was a special bonus gift, a copy of the hardcover book, Mutts: The Comic Art of Patrick McDonnell.  Wow, what a great book!  Whether you love dogs, cats, comics, or art, this book is an incredibly beautiful volume of Patrick McDonnell’s work.  It’s an overview of his career, really, with sketches of the Mutts characters as he developed the idea for the strip, and his most well-known Sunday strips.  The book has a narrative by McDonnell about how he got started as a cartoonist, and each page is accompanied by notes about the particular strip featured.  My favourite aspect of this book is that it really examines the incredible title panels McDonnell draws for each Sunday strip, each a tribute to a famous piece of art, whether it be a painting, an album cover, or a movie poster.  This book is a great value for the price, and it would make a beautiful and appreciated gift for any animal lover in your life.  I read it cover to cover the day it arrived, and I know I’ll frequently browse through it again.

Posted by Leigh-Ann on 01/13 at 08:01 PM
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Another Cat at the Door

Thank goodness the title of this entry is just a book review, and not something which has actually happened to us (at least, not recently).  Author C. W. Gusewelle is familiar with the phenomenon of people who seem to attract stray and needy cats to their household, having married a woman and raised daughters who are like cat magnets.  His collection of short, anecdotal stories, Another Cat at the Door, relates tales of many of the cats he’s shared his life with, some for many years, and others just for a short period of time.  At first the rhythm of the book felt uncomfortable to me, as it had been so long since I’d read anything like a “short story”, or in this case, what I assume is a collection of newspaper columns.  Once I adjusted to the fact that each tale was only two or three pages long, I began to really enjoy hearing about all of Gusewelle’s cat encounters, and his observations about cat behaviour.  He does an excellent job of describing how cats work out social orders, even when the adjustments take years (it gives me hope that one day Frank and Jackson will tolerate each other).  He also hits the nail on the head many times when he relates how each cat has a particular place in his heart, despite all their varying personalities.  There are births, deaths, and illness of course, just as in life, but but every ending is a precursor to a new beginning.  In short, a perfect book for the person who opens their home and heart and life’s little feline strays, like us.  Who knew we’d end up like this?

Posted by Leigh-Ann on 01/13 at 07:42 PM
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Friday, December 09, 2005 , evening

The Cats’ House

I wish Bob Walker lived next-door, so he could come over and “cat-ify” our already cat-laden household.  Until he decides to move here, I have to devote my energies to reading his fun book, The Cats’ House, while dreaming of adding posts and beams and secret passageways to our home.  Don’t tell Flippy… let’s just have it be a surprise when she comes home one day and finds that I’ve tunneled holes between the master bedroom and living room, and put in ramps and pathways so the cats can sneak up on us from the ceiling.  You may have seen photos from Walker’s book in magazines, but if you haven’t, you can check out his great website and interactive online cat map at The Cats’ House Online Home Tour.  If you’re creative, it can inspire you to make your home a bit more exciting for your cats, and a bit more exciting for yourself as well.  Who knew hot pink walls could actually look good?!

Posted by Leigh-Ann on 12/09 at 08:29 PM
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Shadow Cats

Shadow Cats is Janet Jensen’s account of how she became involved with stray/feral cat rescue in her New York City neighbourhood, and how she ultimately found success as a rescuer by using a combination of adoption and trap/neuter/return methods.  If I lived in New York City, I can see how I could quickly become Janet Jensen—it would be so easy to become wrapped up in the care of the local strays and ferals, especially when there are other, nefarious people around who’d just as soon poison the cats as help them out.  Through a combination of trial, error, help, and advice from others, Jensen learns how to determine which cats have adoption potential, and which cats are truly feral and only happy when not in captivity.  In the book she tells a number of “socialization” stories, and as a reader you quickly feel a sense of relief when female cats in the colony are spayed, and there are no more kittens to worry about.  Jensen’s story is unique in that I think she’s the only “cat person” I know of who only lived with one cat, as her cat was so stressed and unhappy with interlopers that a second cat was just out of the question—perhaps she’s lucky because she had incentive to not keep them all smile

This is definitely a good overview of how TNR works in practice, and there are some entertaining cats and human characters along the way as well.  If you buy the book from Amazon’s third-party sellers, buy the new, $9.00 copy from the seller, “JanetJen1”.  Janet Jensen is selling these books herself and signs them for the buyer, so it would make a nice gift for the cat lover in your life.

Posted by Leigh-Ann on 12/09 at 08:12 PM
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Monday, December 05, 2005 , evening

Last Chance Dog

I’m such a skeptic.  If it doesn’t have a reasonable explanation or if it doesn’t seem logical, I don’t believe it.  I think religion is a bunch of hooey.  I hate that people spend money to “cast spells” and “lift curses”.  I’ve never understood why homeopathy, using a millionth of a part of some poisonous substance, can have any effect on anything.  If I don’t think it makes sense, I don’t have any patience for it, so colour me surprised because I loved Dr. Donna Kelleher’s book, The Last Chance Dog.  Kelleher is trained as a “conventional” vet, but continued her studies to become trained in alternative veterinary medicine, including acupuncture, chiropractic, and homeopathy.  This book is a series of case studies from her practice in Seattle, and each chapter focuses on a particular type of healing, with tips for the pet owner at the end of each chapter.  There are recipes for homemade diets, for specials teas for various healing purposes, and numerous homeopathic suggestions for non-emergency situations.  I appreciate that Kelleher tells people to take their dog to a conventional vet first if there’s any possibility of an emergency, but then provides ways a pet owner can work to resolve non-emergency situations at home (or in conjunction with veterinary care).  There are many case studies where conventional and alternative medicine complement each other, and while I’m still going to scowl and roll my eyes at the idea of NAET, I’m completely ready to try to find an acupuncturist to work on Phoenix to help with her allergies.  I think Kelleher goes a bit overboard in a few places in her book in an attempt to capture “spirituality” (her encounter with “garden spirits” made her sound more impaired than inspired), but she’s otherwise very sincere in what she writes, and has a lot of good ideas and suggestions.  I have one big question, though… what ever happened to Spencer, the turtle?!  Kelleher loses her pet turtle three-quarters of the way through the book and as it ended, she still hadn’t found him.

In conclusion, a big “four paws up for this book”.  Speaking of four paws, I’ve ordered Four Paws Five Directions by Cheryl Schwartz, to continue reading about Chinese medicine for cats and dogs.  I wonder if it could help Keno with her feather plucking, too?

Posted by Leigh-Ann on 12/05 at 08:08 PM
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Monday, November 14, 2005 , mid-morning

Getting Lucky

Despite the title, this isn’t a book about having a hot date on a Friday night.  This is a book about an animal hospice in New York state called, Angel’s Gate, and focuses a lot of attention on the story of a dog named “Lucky”.  I’d never heard of Angel’s Gate until, I’m embarrassed to say, I saw founder Susan Marino on Martha Stewart’s TV talk show.  While I appreciate Martha giving national attention to groups like this, wow, she does like to talk and the interview subjects don’t seem to get much information out.  Nevertheless, the book Getting Lucky was mentioned, and I was fascinated by the concept of an animal hospice, so of course I bought a copy.  This is the book I read, cover to cover, while waiting for the doctor during one of Flippy’s recent doctor’s appointments, so it’s not really long—it’s about two hours worth of reading.  The book is broken down into chapters which feature stories of individual animals who’ve spent time at the sanctuary, but the story of Lucky is what is interwoven, and it’s really Lucky who personifies the concept of “animal hospice”.  Aging and abused, Lucky goes from certain euthanization at the ASPCA shelter to a life of comfort and love at Angel’s Gate.  There are no traditional “happy endings”—of course Lucky passes away eventually.  Before that happens, though, Lucky learns to trust again, to enjoy the company of people, and to even enjoy the company of other dogs.  While his time at Angel’s Gate was limited, it was enough time for Lucky to die feeling secure and loved, and that’s the important work that Angel’s Gate is doing.  My compliments and admiration go out to Susan Marino and her family, who turned their home upside-down to give unwanted or “hopeless” cases their last chance.  Marino has done some great things in the physical therapy/pet rehab department, so her work is helping other animals as well.  What Marino does with animals is exactly what I’ve always dreamt of doing, so I found the book quite inspirational.  I think it would be a wonderful gift book for any animal lover, as long as you don’t mind that it’s a bit of a tear-jerker at times.

I’ve got one more thing to say about the book.  One of the themes which runs through regards how Marino, a trained nurse, leaves her nursing job (as well as her first husband, her big house, and expensive car), to run her animal sanctuary.  I was impressed at the way Marino figured out what mattered to her and did it, even if it meant leaving a life of guaranteed comfort.  What astounds me is that her mother was disgusted by her choices, and in fact is disappointed because Marino runs an animal sanctuary.  Disappointed!  I’m not a parent, but I’m pretty sure I’d be happy if my child had a job and partner they loved, and that life made them happy.  That someone could be disappointed in their child for doing that is completely appalling.

Posted by Leigh-Ann on 11/14 at 10:47 AM
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The Body Language and Emotion of Cats

I bought a copy of The Body Language and Emotion of Cats in an attempt to better understand the interpersonal relationships between our four cats, not to mention my desire to better understand their relationship with me.  The book does a great job of answering questions about how a cat views the world, by putting into human terms the way cats’ five senses work together, the way the predator/prey relationship works, how a wild or feral cat relates to its mother and siblings, etc.  It was definitely full of information, and it might be information-overload for the casual reader who just wants to know why their cat flicks his tail when he’s looking out the window, for example.  While I enjoyed the book, especially the anedotal stories about behavioural issues causing problems between pet and owner, I also found the book a bit dry.  The author tries to be entertaining and engaging, but I think this might actually be a case of “too much information”.  If you’re a cat owner and you really want to know what makes your cat tick, right down to knowing how its retina functions and how many vertebrae it has, this book will be a great addition to your library.  If you just want an easy read which explains why your cat stays up all night, you might be better served by one of the many books by Pam Johnson-Bennett.  I did learn many great trivia items about cats while reading, but I can’t say that I had any relationship insights.

Posted by Leigh-Ann on 11/14 at 10:30 AM
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