A lifetime dog-lover experiences the pleasures and pitfalls of domesticating a wolf-dog hybrid.
In order to claim her from a breeder, Terrill (Science Writing and Environmental Journalism/Concordia Univ.; Unnatural Landscapes: Tracking Invasive Species, 2007) frantically drove through the night to claim her newly born female “wolfdog” from a local breeder. “Inyo” became a welcomed distraction after narrowly escaping an abusive relationship. The breeder was quick to educate Terrill on owner-specific etiquette and common misperceptions of wolfdog ownership. However, as the author details in her richly descriptive narrative, upon moving to Reno, Nev., with financially challenged new husband Ryan, she learned these lessons personally after much time spent grappling with precocious Inyo’s unwieldy behavior and the intensive training and domestication rituals involved in establishing herself as the “alpha.” Terrill knows her territory extremely well (she’s formerly a Northern California Forest Service wilderness ranger), and she peppers the narrative with interesting knowledge about the nature of wolves, their interspecies behavioral traits, diet and the serious consequences challenging this type of unorthodox pet ownership. In the good-natured attempt at making Inyo suitable for human companionship, the author adopted two more dogs, and things worsened uncontrollably. Vicious, unprovoked attacks on neighborhood animals, coupled with evictions, irate neighbors and serious bodily injuries, finally necessitated drastic measures against a breed who “neither need nor want a bond with humans.” Complimenting each chapter—and, at times, surpassing the main narrative for its sheer factual noteworthiness—are the informational asides found in the author’s generous 18-page Notes section, which includes expanded research material on the Canis species, observations from other wolfdog owners and breeders and the statutory regulations concerning the care and protection of the breed. Readable, cautionary and dependably informative for staunch animal enthusiasts.
Pub Date: Oct. 11, 2011
ISBN: 978-1-4516-3481-5
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Scribner
Review Posted Online: July 19, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2011
The author's youthfulness helps to assure the inevitable comparison with the Anne Frank diary although over and above the...
Elie Wiesel spent his early years in a small Transylvanian town as one of four children.
He was the only one of the family to survive what Francois Maurois, in his introduction, calls the "human holocaust" of the persecution of the Jews, which began with the restrictions, the singularization of the yellow star, the enclosure within the ghetto, and went on to the mass deportations to the ovens of Auschwitz and Buchenwald. There are unforgettable and horrifying scenes here in this spare and sombre memoir of this experience of the hanging of a child, of his first farewell with his father who leaves him an inheritance of a knife and a spoon, and of his last goodbye at Buchenwald his father's corpse is already cold let alone the long months of survival under unconscionable conditions.
Pub Date: Jan. 16, 2006
ISBN: 0374500010
Page Count: 120
Publisher: Hill & Wang
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2006
A wonderful page-turner written with humility, immediacy, and great style. Nothing came cheap and easy to McCandless, nor...
The excruciating story of a young man on a quest for knowledge and experience, a search that eventually cooked his goose, told with the flair of a seasoned investigative reporter by Outside magazine contributing editor Krakauer (Eiger Dreams, 1990).
Chris McCandless loved the road, the unadorned life, the Tolstoyan call to asceticism. After graduating college, he took off on another of his long destinationless journeys, this time cutting all contact with his family and changing his name to Alex Supertramp. He was a gent of strong opinions, and he shared them with those he met: "You must lose your inclination for monotonous security and adopt a helter-skelter style of life''; "be nomadic.'' Ultimately, in 1992, his terms got him into mortal trouble when he ran up against something—the Alaskan wild—that didn't give a hoot about Supertramp's worldview; his decomposed corpse was found 16 weeks after he entered the bush. Many people felt McCandless was just a hubris-laden jerk with a death wish (he had discarded his map before going into the wild and brought no food but a bag of rice). Krakauer thought not. Admitting an interest that bordered on obsession, he dug deep into McCandless's life. He found a willful, reckless, moody boyhood; an ugly little secret that sundered the relationship between father and son; a moral absolutism that agitated the young man's soul and drove him to extremes; but he was no more a nutcase than other pilgrims. Writing in supple, electric prose, Krakauer tries to make sense of McCandless (while scrupulously avoiding off-the-rack psychoanalysis): his risky behavior and the rites associated with it, his asceticism, his love of wide open spaces, the flights of his soul.
Pub Date: Jan. 1, 1996
ISBN: 0-679-42850-X
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Villard
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 1995
SEEN & HEARD
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
