Animals Best Friends

"How do people who love animals translate that devotion into helping creatures who are not our pets? How do we express our care for animals when that means different things to omnivores and vegetarians-or, say, to hunters and non-hunters? Barbara J. King, a widely read expert on animal cognition and emotion, here guides readers through the difficult choices and deep rewards of turning empathy into action on behalf of animals. King discusses our relationship to animals in five different contexts: our homes, the wild, zoos, our food system, and research facilities such as biomedical laboratories. She offers a host of ways in which each of us can be better, and do better, for animals. Acting to improve animals' lives can, she shows, immeasurably enrich our own. True, there is also heartache and the risk of burnout from endlessness of animal rescue the dilemmas that attend it. But King's focus is on the joys. She describes the "happiness lift" that she herself has experienced joining with other activists on behalf of animals destined for slaughter or confined in sub-standard zoos-and in rescuing dozens of cats, some of whom we meet in this book. This is a book for anyone who cares for animals and wishes to do more for them, whether it's learning to live peaceably with spiders in the home or join with others to rescue our more dramatically endangered animal friends"--

Friendships between humans and non-human animals were once dismissed as sentimental anthropomorphism. After decades of research on the emotional and cognitive capacities of animals, we now recognize human–animal friendships as true reciprocal relationships. Friendships with animals have many of the same characteristics as friendships between humans. Both parties enjoy the shared presence that friendship entails along with the pleasures that come with knowing another being. Both friends develop ways of communicating apart from, or in addition to, spoken language.

Discover a place where every creature is safe and loved in the inspiring true story of Best Friends, the no-kill animal sanctuary in Angel Canyon, Utah. In the summer of 1982, a group of young men and women pooled every penny they had and bought three thousand acres of desert in Utah. It was to become the most famous no-kill animal sanctuary in the world—a haven for over two thousand furry and feathered friends, including: Sinjin, the badly burned black cat who survived to welcome others home; Victor, the abandoned Australian Shepherd mix who became the Godfather of dogs; Sparkles, the broken-down pack horse who comforts humans and animals; and then there’s Tyson and Tommy, two tiny black kittens who have something to teach us all . . . In Best Friends, you’ll fall in love with the animals and the people who share a special bond, whose enchanting adventures together will touch your heart with the true meaning of friendship. Includes an introduction by Mary Tyler Moore

In almost 40 per cent of households in North America, dogs are kept as companion animals. Dogs may be man's best friends, but what are humans to dogs? If these animals' loyalty and unconditional love have won our hearts, why do we so often view closely related wild canids, such as foxes, wolves, and coyotes, as pests, predatory killers, and demons? Re-examining the complexity and contradictions of human attitudes towards these animals, Dog's Best Friend? looks at how our relationships with canids have shaped and also been transformed by different political and economic contexts. Journeying from ancient Greek and Roman societies to Japan's Edo period to eighteenth-century England, essays explore how dogs are welcomed as family, consumed in Asian food markets, and used in Western laboratories. Contributors provide glimpses of the lives of street dogs and humans in Bali, India, Taiwan, and Turkey and illuminate historical and current interactions in Western societies. The book delves into the fantasies and fears that play out in stereotypes of coyotes and wolves, while also acknowledging that events such as the Wolf Howl in Canada's Algonquin Park indicate the emergence of new popular perspectives on canids. Questioning where canids belong, how they should be treated, and what rights they should have, Dog's Best Friend? reconsiders the concept of justice and whether it can be extended beyond the limit of the human species.

“No Dog Should Die Alone” was the attention-grabbing — and heart-stirring — headline of journalist Laura T. Coffey’s TODAY show website story about photographer Lori Fusaro’s work with senior shelter pets. While generally calm, easy, and already house-trained, these animals often represent the highest-risk population at shelters. With gorgeous, joyful photographs and sweet, funny, true tales of “old dogs learning new tricks,” Coffey and Fusaro show that adopting a senior can be even more rewarding than choosing a younger dog. You’ll meet endearing elders like Marnie, the irresistible shih tzu who has posed for selfies with Tina Fey, James Franco, and Betty White; Remy, a soulful nine-year-old dog adopted by elderly nuns; George Clooney’s cocker spaniel, Einstein; and Bretagne, the last known surviving search dog from Ground Zero. They may be slower moving and a tad less exuberant than puppies, but these pooches prove that adopting a senior brings immeasurable joy, earnest devotion, and unconditional love.

Key Selling Points In My Best Friend Is Extinct a boy discovers a strange, wounded prehistoric creature and nurses it back to health. A fun imaginative adventure story about bravery and friendship. There are more than 30 fun, evocative b/w illustrations by an award-winning illustrator. The creatures in the book are based on actual prehistoric creatures (short-nose bear and saber-tooth tiger).

Why our cats are a danger to species diversity and human health In 1894, a lighthouse keeper named David Lyall arrived on Stephens Island off New Zealand with a cat named Tibbles. In just over a year, the Stephens Island Wren, a rare bird endemic to the island, was rendered extinct. Mounting scientific evidence confirms what many conservationists have suspected for some time—that in the United States alone, free-ranging cats are killing birds and other animals by the billions. Equally alarming are the little-known but potentially devastating public health consequences of rabies and parasitic Toxoplasma passing from cats to humans at rising rates. Cat Wars tells the story of the threats free-ranging cats pose to biodiversity and public health throughout the world, and sheds new light on the controversies surrounding the management of the explosion of these cat populations. This compelling book traces the historical and cultural ties between humans and cats from early domestication to the current boom in pet ownership, along the way accessibly explaining the science of extinction, population modeling, and feline diseases. It charts the developments that have led to our present impasse—from Stan Temple's breakthrough studies on cat predation in Wisconsin to cat-eradication programs underway in Australia today. It describes how a small but vocal minority of cat advocates has campaigned successfully for no action in much the same way that special interest groups have stymied attempts to curtail smoking and climate change. Cat Wars paints a revealing picture of a complex global problem—and proposes solutions that foresee a time when wildlife and humans are no longer vulnerable to the impacts of free-ranging cats.