Animal Garden

Animal lovers and sports fans were shocked when the story broke about NFL player Michael Vick’s brutal dogfighting operation. But what became of the dozens of dogs who survived? As acclaimed writer Jim Gorant discovered, their story is the truly newsworthy aspect of this case.

Steve Mann has been a professional dog trainer and behaviourist for over 30 years. He has trained over 100,000 dogs and thousands of professional dog trainers. He is founder and chairman of the Institute of Modern Dog Trainers and presents seminars, courses and workshops for dog trainers and behaviourists worldwide. Whether you're living with a brand-new puppy, an adult dog or rescue dog, Steve’s methods will give you everything you need to know.

In engaging chapters filled with empathy for both the beleaguered humans and their confused puppies, Welcoming Your Puppy from Planet Dog paves the way for a rewarding friendship between a relaxed, well-prepared human and a canine family member who's happily at ease in our world.

Do you feel overwhelmed by unreliable online information while trying to embark on your dream of self-sufficient living? Are you anxious about navigating the complexities of food production, raising livestock, or emergency preparedness? Feel daunted by the idea of starting with limited space or budget? Worried about balancing time or lacking experience?

In 41 essays, one of the world's most influential dog trainer and behaviorists, Jean Donaldson highlights the common and frequently wrong-headed notions people have about why dogs behave the way they do, and explains what really motivates your pooch and how to change behavior. Jean's innovative ideas are delivered via quirky and witty, but always scientifically-based, essays that will help create "Aha!" moments for every dog-lover on earth. If you loved Jean's best selling book "The Culture Clash", you will enjoy learning more about the dogs who inhabit planet Neptune and the people who don't!

While grief is a normal, healthy response to losing a beloved pet, it is important to work through its various stages and eventually find a way to move forward. Understanding the depth of your bond and learning to celebrate rather than mourn your years together helps memorialize your pet. It also equips you with perspective and the capacity to love again. This book is your compassionate and comforting guide throughout the healing process—an understanding companion as you explore the depths of your grief. The journey to peace and recovery starts here.

If you've answered "yes" to any of these questions, you're not alone. Countless dog owners struggle with reactive dogs, feeling overwhelmed and helpless. Reactive Dogs: Positive Training Strategies is your comprehensive roadmap to understanding, managing, and transforming your dog's challenging behavior.

We share our lives, for better or worse, with a multitude of animals: white-tailed deer and white-tailed eagles, hens and wrens, frogs and guppies, and, last but hardly least, bugs and bacteria. For the most part, we drift along separately, with neither man nor animal affecting the other's way of life. Sometimes, however, we fall in love - as in the case of the cat in the title - or otherwise encounter our animal neighbors in ways that change both of us.

In 2007, a few years after purchasing Bedlam Farm in upstate New York, Jon Katz met Maria Wulf, a quiet, sensitive artist hoping to rekindle her creative spark. Jon, like her, was introspective yet restless, a writer struggling to find his purpose. He felt a connection with her immediately, but a formidable obstacle stood in the way: Maria' s dog, Frieda. A rottweiler-shepherd mix who had been abandoned by her previous owner in the Adirondacks, where she lived in the wild for several years, Frieda was ferociously protective and barely tamed.

Pet birds are intelligent, affectionate, and rewarding companions. No matter what bird you choose, you need to set up a happy home for him with the right stuff. You also need to keep your bird healthy by performing routine care and knowing what a healthy bird looks like and how he behaves. This friendly guide describes the birds that make the best pets, explains how to select the bird that's best for you, offers tips on bonding with your feathered friend, and provides expert advice on feeding and environmental enrichment that will keep these intelligent pets engaged.

Margaret Winslow met midlife agita not head-on, but ass-on, fulfilling a childhood curiosity about donkeys by answering a for-sale ad in the American Donkey and Mule Society's magazine, The Brayer. Hilarity ensues, alongside life-threatening injuries and spirit-enriching insight.... As listeners walk with Winslow and Caleb the donkey through training traumas, expert-baffling antics, and humiliating races, they also share in the author's gradual understanding of Caleb's true, undeniable gifts: a willingness to "speak truth to power", to trust, and to forgive.

With its endearing blend of humor, wisdom, and insight, Soul of a Dog, by New York Times best-selling author Jon Katz, illuminates the interaction between humans and animals.

Although he features his ever-faithful border collie, Rose, Katz also includes revealing observations about Mother the murderous barn cat, Elvis the doughnut-loving steer, and his other dogs - Izzy, Lenore, and Pearl.

His winning percentage was well above Jordan’s shooting average or Woods’s domination of golf tournaments. And he sold products and drew spectators like no one had ever done. He was hands down the most famous athlete in America’s most popular spectator sport, and exactly one hundred years ago you would have been hard pressed to find anybody in the country who didn’t know his name. He was Dan Patch, and he was a racehorse.

In The Stress Factor in Dogs, Dr. Kristina Spaulding explores what science has revealed about stress in dogs and other mammals and demonstrates how to effectively read scientific research in order to apply our acquired knowledge to the dogs in our lives. This thoroughly comprehensive book provides detailed insight on how stress affects the health and well-being of our dogs at all stages of development.

Good Dog offers memorable, beautifully written stories of dog ownership, companionship, friendship, and kinship. From the troublemakers who can't be fenced in to the lifelong companions who won't leave our sides, this poignant anthology showcases man's best friend through all of his most endearing--and sometimes maddening--attributes.

As historian Mark Essig reveals in Lesser Beasts, swine have such a bad reputation for precisely the same reasons they are so valuable as a source of food: they are intelligent, self-sufficient, and omnivorous. What's more, he argues, we ignore our historic partnership with these astonishing animals at our peril.

Your dog is always talking — you just haven’t learned the language yet. Every bark, yip, and whine carries meaning. Whether it’s a joyful greeting when you walk through the door, a sharp alarm at the sound of footsteps outside, or a lonely cry when you leave for work, your dog’s voice is their emotional map of the world. Decoding Your Dog’s Barks reveals what those sounds really mean and shows how to listen beyond the noise.

Oscar the cat has a very special skill. An otherwise ordinary cat—he'd sooner give you his back or a sideways glance than curl up on your lap—Oscar has the uncanny ability to predict when people are about to die. Adopted by staff members at Steere House nursing home when he was a kitten, the three year-old cat has presided over the deaths of more than twenty-five nursing home residents thus far.

When 23-year-old shepherdess Emma Gray breaks off her engagement, the chance to take over an isolated Northumberland farm seems just the fresh start she needs. But while the beautiful scenery certainly offers plenty of scope for contemplation, a night out with an eligible bachelor soon seems more remote than the farm itself. And once you add fugitive sheep and freak blizzards into the mix, Emma's dreams of a happy future at Fallowlees Farm quickly begin to fade.

The internationally bestselling author of The Hidden Life of Trees shows how we can decipher nature's secret signs by studying the weather. The internationally bestselling author of The Hidden Life of Trees shows how we can decipher nature's secret signs by studying the weather. In this...