An information-packed guide to managing and modifying cat and dog behaviors sensitively and effectively.
Shelley-Grielen offers an exhaustive treatise on the behaviors of cats, dogs, and their humans as they interact with one another.
Through comprehensive discussions of the evolutionary history of cats and dogs, the author details the influences on their behavior vis-à-vis their human caretakers. Cats, for example, “process information through primary senses not our own.” They see the world through “scent, pheromones, and sound.” Major topics are covered in individual chapters dedicated to specific issues. A thorough examination of the natural behaviors of cats and dogs, involving their social structures, communication methods, and cognitive abilities, forms the basis for addressing behavioral problems. Under the broad category of environmental enrichment, Shelley-Grielen highlights the importance of providing a stimulating environment that meets the physical, mental, and social needs of the animal, which helps prevent boredom and subsequent behavioral issues. The author is a great advocate for positive reinforcement techniques in training to promote desirable behaviors while minimizing stress and fear in pets, and she offers solutions for addressing especially troublesome behavioral issues such as aggression, anxiety, and inappropriate elimination. Beginning each subject with her personal experience with an animal to illustrate the built-in biological differences between humans and the animals with whom they are trying to communicate, Shelley-Grielen follows up with a compendium of scientific data. The author has a tendency toward verbosity, which will likely cause readers to begin skimming. (“While dogs, whose primary sense is smell, have keyed more into our reliance on the visual, honing shared eye contact with us…[cats] rely on our ability to interpret the meaning in a range of auditory signals or words for humans.”) Still, the organizational structure of the book, with its stand-alone chapters addressing specific issues, makes this an accessible, useful reference book for pet parents. Readers will likely appreciate the plethora of engaging factoids offered, such as the observation that humans have the most expressive faces of any animal thanks to their 52 separate face muscles.
An information-packed guide to managing and modifying cat and dog behaviors sensitively and effectively.Pub Date: April 30, 2024
ISBN: 9798323912698
Page Count: 422
Publisher: Self
Review Posted Online: July 17, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2024
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A charming, thoughtful pleasure for any animal lover.
A celebration of animal companions, mammalian, reptilian, avian, and otherwise.
The Ulysses S. Cat of NPR commentator Simon’s title was a “chunky orange Scottish Fold with endearing floppy ears and a broad, flat face that looked…as if he had been running full steam after a mouse when a door opened and…splat!” He may not have been the most photogenic of critters, but he was a steadfast companion to Simon’s mother and stepfather as the latter suffered illness and death. Other creatures populate Simon’s pages: a betta named Salman Fishdie, a grasshopper named Hoppy, many dogs and cats. Simon ranges widely to collect his stories; among the most affecting is a portrait of the people of Sarajevo under siege by Serbian forces, punctuated by an impatient colleague’s saying to Simon, “I do not want to get shot while doing a fucking pet story.” A good point, that, but Simon is emboldened and moved by the Sarajevans’ and U.N. soldiers’ care for pets displaced from their homes. “In making room for animals at the lowest times of their lives,” he writes, “Sarajevo showed the world real humanitarian aid.” In a somewhat lighter turn, Simon voices the hope that the afterlife will involve meeting again with all the animals and people we have loved, with no hard distinction drawn between birds, dogs, cats, turtles, and other beloved animal companions and other members of one’s family, biological and elective. While recognizing that animals make us better humans, holding unconditional love but eschewing grudges, Simon also decries the misuse of animals, particularly in laboratory settings where other modeling methods can be used that do not visit pain and death on such creatures as chimpanzees and white rats. Writes Simon, meaningfully, “Someday, I’m pretty sure we’ll look back on our use of animals in this way as something brutal.” Amen.
A charming, thoughtful pleasure for any animal lover.Pub Date: May 5, 2026
ISBN: 9781324117186
Page Count: 176
Publisher: Norton
Review Posted Online: Feb. 2, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2026
PERSPECTIVES
An ebullient nature lover’s paean to birds.
A charming bird journey with the bestselling author.
In his introduction to Tan’s “nature journal,” David Allen Sibley, the acclaimed ornithologist, nails the spirit of this book: a “collection of delightfully quirky, thoughtful, and personal observations of birds in sketches and words.” For years, Tan has looked out on her California backyard “paradise”—oaks, periwinkle vines, birch, Japanese maple, fuchsia shrubs—observing more than 60 species of birds, and she fashions her findings into delightful and approachable journal excerpts, accompanied by her gorgeous color sketches. As the entries—“a record of my life”—move along, the author becomes more adept at identifying and capturing them with words and pencils. Her first entry is September 16, 2017: Shortly after putting up hummingbird feeders, one of the tiny, delicate creatures landed on her hand and fed. “We have a relationship,” she writes. “I am in love.” By August 2018, her backyard “has become a menagerie of fledglings…all learning to fly.” Day by day, she has continued to learn more about the birds, their activities, and how she should relate to them; she also admits mistakes when they occur. In December 2018, she was excited to observe a Townsend’s Warbler—“Omigod! It’s looking at me. Displeased expression.” Battling pesky squirrels, Tan deployed Hot Pepper Suet to keep them away, and she deterred crows by hanging a fake one upside down. The author also declared war on outdoor cats when she learned they kill more than 1 billion birds per year. In May 2019, she notes that she spends $250 per month on beetle larvae. In June 2019, she confesses “spending more hours a day staring at birds than writing. How can I not?” Her last entry, on December 15, 2022, celebrates when an eating bird pauses, “looks and acknowledges I am there.”
An ebullient nature lover’s paean to birds.Pub Date: April 23, 2024
ISBN: 9780593536131
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: Jan. 19, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2024
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