Showing posts with label animals. Show all posts
Showing posts with label animals. Show all posts

Jun 4, 2014

Wordless Wednesday: In My Garden

Visit
Wordless Wednesday  for other photo submissions. Photos by Harvee Lau.

Finch at the birdbath
Baby cottontail rabbit

Feb 16, 2012

What an Animal Reading Challenge V - I Signed Up!


The new challenge, What An Animal Reading Challenge V, will begin on March 1, 2012 and end on February 28, 2013. The rules are really simple...

1. Read at least 6 books that have any of the following requirements:

a. there is an animal in the title of the book

b. there is an animal on the cover of the book

c. an animal plays a major role in the book

d. a main character is (or turns into) an animal (define that however you'd like).

Visit the challenge website hosted by Yvonne of Socrates Book Review Blog for the complete rules and to sign up with Mr. Linky!

Here are the books I plan to read, so far:


1. Roam by Alan Lazar

2. Fashion Faux Paw: A Dog Walker's Mystery by Judi McCoy - reviewed.

3. To Catch a Leaf: A Flower Shop Mystery by Kate Collins

4. The Big Kitty by Claire Donally

5.The Dog That Talked to God by Jim Kraus

6. Tahoe Trap by Todd Borg

7.  A Fistful of Collars by Spencer Quinn

8. Following Atticus by Tom Ryan

9. Things Your Dog Doesn't Want You to Know by Hy Conrad and Jeff Johnson

Apr 12, 2011

Book Review: The Bond: Our Kinship with Animals by Wayne Pacelle

The Bond: Our Kinship with Animals, Our Call to Defend Them by Wayne Pacelle, president/CEO of The Humane Society of the United States
Hardcover: 448 pages
Publisher: William Morrow (April 5, 2011)
Source: Publisher
Objective rating: 5/5

"Along with sorrow, animals also fall into depression just like us....That animals experience emotional trauma when they're isolated, mistreated, or bereaved should not surprise us...
The hurts and losses that animals experience are more than skin deep, as in the especially poignant case of elephant calves who have seen their parents killed by poachers. Well into their lives, if not forever, they show signs of posttraumatic stress disorder."
(p. 77)
Comments: Though I love going to zoos, I can feel for the animals who don't have wide spaces to roam around in, as many zoos have today. I love seeing elephants and other animals in a simulation of their natural environment. There is only one animal I won't go out of my way to see, and that is the mountain gorilla, who is most often caged because of its size and strength. The intelligence in its eyes and its awareness of its confined circumstances is not something I enjoy seeing. If I had my way, there would be none of these animals in zoos!

A wonderful book that everyone should read!

Product Description
"A fascinating exploration of humanity's eternal bond with animals, and an urgent call to answer the needs of millions of at-risk creatures

A landmark work, The Bond is the passionate, insightful, and comprehensive examination of our special connection to all creatures, written by one of America's most important champions of animal welfare. Wayne Pacelle, the president of the Humane Society of the United States, unveils the deep links of the human-animal bond, as well as the conflicting impulses that have led us to betray this bond through widespread and systemic cruelty to animals.

Pacelle begins by exploring the biological and historical underpinnings of the human-animal bond and reveals our newfound understanding of animals, including their remarkable emotional and cognitive capacities. In the book's second section, Pacelle shows how the bond has been disastrously broken. He takes readers to a slaughter plant shuttered for inhumane practices, as well as the enormous egg factory farms of California. We visit Leavenworth Federal Penitentiary in Kansas to speak with NFL star Michael Vick, then serving his sentence for dogfighting. Pacelle paints a portrait of New Orleans in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, and highlights the heroic actions of residents and volunteers to reunite pets with their owners. Pacelle's narrative also leads the reader to remote locations in which conflicts over the killing of wildlife continue to play out—from the fields outside of Yellowstone National Park where bison are slaughtered with the encouragement of federal authorities, to the ice floes of Atlantic Canada where seal nurseries turn into killing fields.

In its final section, The Bond takes on the arguments of opponents and critics of animal protection and spotlights the groups and industries standing in the way of progress—from the National Rifle Association and agribusiness organizations like the American Farm Bureau, to surprising adversaries like the American Veterinary Medical Association and the American Kennel Club. Ultimately, Pacelle points the way to a new, humane economy—one not built on extraction, suffering, and killing, but on the celebration, stewardship, and care of animals.

An eye-opening must-read, The Bond reminds us that animals are at the center of our lives, they are not just a backdrop. How we treat them is one of the great themes of the human story."

Jan 6, 2011

Books: Travels with a Pet and Other Animals

Besides downloading more than 250 books so far from Kindle, most of them classics for free, I've bought and am reading a few that cost $2.99 or less and one just downloaded for $7.95.  Keeping costs down, but then two days ago I spent over $30 in the bookstore!

Travels with a Donkey in the CevennesI'm now re-reading and enjoying Travels with a Donkey in the Cevennes by Robert Louis Stevenson, in which the author roams through mountains in France with his pack animal, a little donkey he names Modestine.

Travels With Charley: In Search of America Another travel book that I've read a couple of times is Travels with Charley in Search of America: (Centennial Edition) by John Steinbeck, who motored across America in the 1960 with his dog, a standard poodle named Charley.

Wish I knew more books about traveling with a pet or animal. Do you know of any?

Sunday Salon: Letting Go of September by Sandra J. Jackson

  Books reviewed Letting Go of September by Sandra J. Jackson, July 31, 2024; BooksGoSocial Genre: thriller , family drama Themes: reflectiv...