Dog Science

How did the dog become man’s best friend? A celebrated anthropologist unearths the mysterious origins of the unique partnership that rewrote the history of both species.

Mary Brave Bird grew up fatherless in a one-room cabin, without running water or electricity, on the Rosebud Indian Reservation in South Dakota. Rebelling against the aimless drinking, punishing missionary school, narrow strictures for women, and violence and hopeless of reservation life, she joined the new movement of tribal pride sweeping Native American communities in the '60s and '70s.

After the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995, Susannah Charleson was so impressed by the newspaper photo of an exhausted handler and his search-and-rescue dog that she decided to train a dog of her own. A dog lover and pilot with search experience herself, Charleson got Puzzle, a strong, bright Golden Retriever, who from the start, exhibited a unique aptitude for search-and-rescue work. But the puppy’s willfulness challenged even Susannah, who had raised dogs for years.

Tuckerbean's owner surprises him with a trip to the amusement park. When his owner goes on a ride without Tuckerbean, he decides to go exploring. Where does Tuckerbean end up?

The year is 1925. It is sixty degrees below zero. The wind sweeps tons of snow over the deep-frozen Alaskan landscape. The nearest railhead is seven hundred miles away. Airplanes cannot fly. The way to Nome is blocked by a treacherous frozen sound, an icebound port, and mountains to the west. But there is a diphtheria epidemic in Nome. The children need serum from the outside world if they are to survive. Their only hope is a few chosen Eskimo drivers and their teams of dogs.

When Gregory and Irene’s great, great grandson Sean reaches out from the future to beg for their help finding a kidnapped baby, the two are thrown into a wild search. Without the baby, the entire family’s existence will be in jeopardy. To complicate matters, Bugs Moran has called in his marker and wants the Davenports to recover kidnapped infant Fannie Donnelly—one of the premature babies stolen from the hospital in what they discover is a black market baby ring.

In 1992, two Russian moviemakers left a cryptic note for New Mexican writer Stephen Bodio at his local bar. It led him to Brighton Beach in Brooklyn, where he saw a film about the ancient breed of Central Asian sight hounds known as tazis. He would end up chasing these leads to Kazakhstan, where these beautiful dogs may have existed 6,000 years ago.

For fans of Kevin Wilson and Andrew Sean Greer, a helper robot and his 35-year-old ward embark on a mad-cap adventure to save the fate of the family company in this whimsically speculative ode to Wodehouse’s Jeeves and Wooster. Cy wants nothing more than to be useful, raise his utility score...

Derek's brother Ronny isn't himself.... No, really. Ronny's body has been taken over by the long-dead soul of a man named Virgil Black. Lucky for him, Virgil is one of the good guys. Not all of them are. In fact, a Legion of evil souls is staging a serious comeback. And they're staging it at Bayou Malpierre, the site of Derek's most horrible nightmare. That nightmare is about to get even worse. . . .

Pup has boundless energy and endless optimism; Dragon is cool and thoughtful but always up for adventure … together, they are best friends who are always there for one another. In their first adventure, they are trying to catch one of Santa's little helpers—only Dragon has no idea what a Santa is let alone an elf.

What could go better with wieners than a flying space circus? Nothing! Which is why Humphree's all jazzed up at the chance to sell Galactic Hot Dogs as the official food of Crostini's Cosmic Carnival and Wonder Circus train. Cosmoe's not entirely convinced - but once his skills as a monster tamer are unveiled, the deal is done, and the Neon Wiener is officially hooked onto the train.

Kavin reveals how dog merchants create markets for dogs, often in defiance of the usual rules of supply and demand. She takes an investigative approach and meets breeders and rescuers at all levels, shedding much-needed light on an industry that most people don't even realize is an industry. Kavin's goal is to advance the conversation about how all dogs are treated, from puppy mills to high-kill shelters. She shows that a great deal can be improved by understanding the business practices behind selling dogs of all kinds.

Do you ever wonder what your dogs are thinking? How they feel? What they’re dreaming about as they run, whimper, bark, and growl in their sleep? Who or what they’re playing with when they romp around all by themselves? What they’re looking at when all you see is a blank wall or an empty doorway? Will we see them again after they’ve gone? What if they wrote and sent you a story from the great beyond? This Dog’s Afterlife answers those questions.

After unexpected adventures while helping DPREM determine the fate of a research submersible lost off the coast of a Hawaiian island, Logan returns home. With two demons and a homicidal elf still at large, Logan certainly has enough to worry about. After a day of exploring other worlds with his friends, he heads west with his leprechaun mentor to pursue an emergent clue that might lead to one of the demons. While the evidence is slight, it can't be ignored. Luckily for Logan, he finds groups of magic users eager to help him at every turn in his journey.

When Danielle Geller’s mother dies of alcohol withdrawal during an attempt to get sober, Geller returns to Florida and finds her mother’s life packed into eight suitcases. Most were filled with clothes, except for the last one, which contained diaries, photos, and letters, a few undeveloped disposable cameras, dried sage, jewelry, and the bandana her mother wore on days she skipped a hair wash. Geller, an archivist and a writer, uses these pieces of her mother’s life to try and understand her mother’s relationship to home, and their shared need to leave it.

The Burke Siblings are damn good at what they do. And what they do? Well that isn’t any good at all. As wet work operators for the Order of Magic, the Burkes pay a high price to use their magic. For years, they threw themselves into the Order’s dirty work, cleaning up messes that the Nine liked to pretend didn’t exist. But all that has changed. Someone in Black Ops has decided that the Burke siblings are a liability. And when the Order’s most accomplished killer comes after them, it doesn’t take an elementalist to figure out they’ve been burned.

With the help of vets, ethologists, neurologists, historians and his own dogs, Wonderdog reveals the study of dogs to be key in the advancement of compassion in scientific research, and crucial to making life on Earth better for all species.

Journalist Josh Dean tells the story of a lovable Australian Shepherd, Jack, on his novice tour through the exciting world of professional dog showing, following Jack from his first competitions in local school gymnasiums all the way to the great granddaddy of them all, the Westminster Dog Show. A veteran journalist, Dean shines a warm, steady light on the trials that Jack and his plucky, dedicated owners come to face, and uses their story to explore the larger histories of dog shows themselves and our complex, heartfelt relationships to the pets we grow to love.

Can cats and dogs ever get along, let alone fall in love? Sam knows you can never go home again. As an orphaned feline shifter raised by wolves, being an outcast is nothing new to him. But the pack is still his family, and when one of them passes away, Sam returns to the New Mexico desert to say good-bye. Gus is a loner who rarely returns to his pack, but as fate would have it, Sam is there when he chooses to visit. The history between Gus and Sam is tumultuous, to say the least.

The scent of one freshly unearthed white truffle in Barolo was all it took to lead Rowan Jacobsen down a rabbit hole into a world of secretive hunts, misty woods, black-market deals, obsessive chefs, quixotic scientists, muddy dogs, maddening smells, and some of the most memorable meals ever created.