BOOKS

Only The Animals

Ceridwen Dovey

Journal of Avian Medicine and Surgery

Published by: Association of Avian Veterinarians

Table of Contents

Humans, Animals, Theology, Books

David Cassuto

Looking for a 10 Best list of books on the Theology of Human/Animal Relationships?  Look no further.  It’s here.

Football, Pit Bulls, and Regaining Trust: A book review of Jim Gorant’s The Lost Dogs

Stephen Iannacone

In July of 2007, after months of investigating, Michael Vick and three others were charged with the federal crime of operating an interstate dog fighting ring known as “Bad Newz Kennels.”  Initially, Vick maintained that he only funded the dog fighting ring.  However, as further details were released over the course of the investigation, he eventually confessed and publicly apologized for his actions.  Every sports fan, animal advocate, and legal aficionado knows the result of this case.  However, very few of us know the amount of effort that went into building a case against Vick, collecting the evidence, attempting to rehabilitate the pit bulls that authorities were able to rescue, and finding these pit bulls new and loving homes.

Jim Gorant, a senior editor at Sports Illustrated, does a remarkable job of presenting these facts in his book The Lost Dogs.  The book leaves you feeling sickened that a man like Vick could be playing football again after a mere 19months in prison, but also feeling revitalized to learn that so many of the pit bulls have survived what they were forced to endure.  Gorant pays credit where it is due: to the investigators who managed to obtain a near impossible warrant and eventually indicted Vick; to the shelters that helped care for the pit bulls after they were rescued; to the many people who assisted in rehabilitating the pit bulls; and to the pit bulls themselves.  Gorant reveals the true side of not only the Vick dogs, but also an entire breed.  Plainly stated, pit bulls are discriminated against, especially in the media.  This book takes a step in……

The Way I See It

Temple Grandin, Ph.D., is the most accomplished and well-known adult with autism in the world. Now her fascinating life, with all its challenges and successes is being brought to the screen. HBO has produced the full-length film Temple Grandin, which premieres on Saturday, February 6th on HBO. She has been featured on NPR (National Public Radio), major television programs, such as the BBC special “The Woman Who Thinks Like a Cow”, ABC’s Primetime Live, The Today Show, Larry King Live, 48 Hours and 20/20, and has been written about in many national publications, such as Time magazine, People magazine, Forbes, U.S. News and World Report, and New York Times. Among numerous other recognitions by media, Bravo Cable did a half-hour show on her life, and she was featured in the best-selling book, Anthropologist from Mars.

Dr. Grandin didn’t talk until she was three and a half years old, communicating her frustration instead by screaming, peeping, and humming. In 1950, she was diagnosed with autism and her parents were told she should be institutionalized. She tells her story of “groping her way from the far side of darkness” in her book Emergence: Labeled Autistic, a book which stunned the world because, until its publication, most professionals and parents assumed that an autism diagnosis was virtually a death sentence to achievement or productivity in life.

Dr. Grandin has become a prominent author and speaker on the subject of autism because “I have read enough to know that there are still many parents, and yes, professionals too, who believe that ‘once autistic, always autistic.’ This dictum has meant sad and sorry lives for many children diagnosed, as I was in early life, as autistic. To these people, it is incomprehensible that the characteristics of autism can be modified and controlled. However, I feel strongly that I am living proof that they can” (from Emergence: Labeled Autistic).

Even though she was considered “weird” in her young school years, she eventually found a mentor, who recognized her interests and abilities. Dr. Grandin later developed her talents into a successful career as a livestock-handling equipment designer, one of very few in the world. She has now designed the facilities in which half the cattle are handled in the United States, consulting for firms such as Burger King, McDonald’s, Swift, and others.

Dr. Grandin presently works as a Professor of Animal Science at Colorado State University. She also speaks around the world on both autism and cattle handling. At every Future Horizons conference on autism, the audience rates her presentation as 10+.

Dr. Grandin’s current bestselling book on autism is The Way I See It: A Personal Look at Autism and Asperger’s. She also authored Unwritten Rules of Social Relationships, Animals Make us Human, Animals in Translation, Thinking in Pictures, Emergence: Labeled Autistic and produced several DVDs. All books and DVD’s available through Future Horizons.

Pets, Early Adolescents, and Families

Pets and the Socialization of Children

ANIMAL LAW IN AUSTRALASIA

If you’d prefer to just read, check out my blog review of the proceedings.

Photos from the New Zealand launch.

AUSTRALIA LAUNCH – 5 MAY 2009

The Australia launch of Animal Law in Australasia: A New Dialogue, took place on 5 May 2009, in conjunction with another important event – the Voiceless 2009 Animal Law Lecture Series at the University of Sydney. We were delighted that the Honourable Michael Kirby, former justice of the High Court of Australia, officially launched the book.

Here is my blog review of the proceeding. And here are some photos.

To read Justice Kirby’s speech that launched the book, visit the Voiceless web site.

http://www.elsevier.com/

ELSEVIER AT A GLANCE (click for full list of titles)

As the world’s leading publisher of science and health information, Elsevier serves more than 30 million scientists, students and health and information professionals worldwide.
We help customers advance science and health by providing world-class information and innovative tools that help them make critical decisions, enhance productivity and improve outcomes.

1. Animal Reproduction Science
Journal 

2. Animal Feed Science and Technology
Journal 

3. Domestic Animal Endocrinology
Journal 

4. Applied Animal Behaviour Science
Journal 

5. Essays in Animal Behaviour
Book, 2006, by Jeffrey Lucas 

6. Analysis and Management of Animal Populations
Book, 2002, by Byron Williams

Filling the Ark: Animal Welfare in Disasters by Leslie Irvine

August 2009 Stephanie Hlywak nonfiction

In February 2009, as devastating wildfires swept across Australia, an image of an injured koala drinking water from a rescue worker’s plastic bottle fanned across the internet. In the photograph, the marsupial tenderly holds the firefighter’s hand, her paws covered with second- and third-degree burns, as she accepts a sip of water amid a scorched landscape. As observers, we anthropomorphized the koala; that the animal is typically — despite its teddy-bear-like appearance — cantankerous and evasive around humans only imbued the scene with even more emotional immediacy.

The video from which the image was taken quickly went viral, and for good reason: it was excruciatingly heart-rending. But there was something deeper at play, something more that propelled the image into inboxes and onto cable news. Koalas rank high on something called the sociozoologic scale: they are cute and, therefore, we want to save them. If the image had shown a large spider or mangy rat, few would have paused to say “Awwww.”

Responding to the interest in the marsupial, David Tree, the firefighter in the photograph, told the Associated Press that he hoped the koala’s rescue didn’t obscure the catastrophe of the lives and property lost in the wildfires. But to sociologist Leslie Irvine, the koala, and the firefighter’s dismissal of its celebrity, sheds light on attitudes about animals in disaster situations. Just as people are displaced and imperiled by extraordinary events like hurricanes, flooding, oil spills, and war, so too are animals. A slender but impassioned volume, Filling the Ark argues that in dealing with disasters, we have an obligation to consider animal welfare alongside that of human welfare in our response plans.

click here for rest of article

• Origins of Attitudes Toward Animals- Jenia Meng

Thanks to Jenia’s time, research and generosity, we are able to get another picture about Cultural attitudes toward animals! Happy Reading!
Full book: http://jmeng.goodeasy.info/publications/readOAA.php

Great Abstract of the book:
click here for PDF http://jmeng.goodeasy.info/publications/OriginsOfAttitudesTowardsAnimals_Abstract.pdf
J.Meng – ORIGINS OF ATTITUDES TOWARDS ANIMALS – 2009