By Martin Kihm (Pantheon Books / April 2011 / ISBN: 978-0-307-37915-3) Can a dog improve your health? Research has been conflicting: In a recent New York Times OpEd, Hal Herzog says that “research has shown that stroking an animal lowers blood pressure,” but that “a 2006 survey of Americans by the Pew Research Center . . . reported that living with a pet did not make people any happier.” For USA Today, Janice Lloyd states that “having a dog DOES improve your health,” and that “research shows dog ownership can decrease a child’s chances of being obese by as much as 50%.” In Martin Kihn’s case, a dog kept him sober. Bad Dog (A Love Story), Kihn’s memoir, is NOT a typical, fuzzy dog book. The premise: Man gets drunk; man gets dog; man, because studiously inebriated, fails to impart an ounce of discipline on dog. Here is a story about a man’s struggle to stay sober and tame an unruly, but irresistible Bernese mountain dog named Hola. BAD DOG proves dogs’ salubrious effects on humans—both mentally and physically.
You Had Me at Woof: How Dogs Taught Me the Secrets of Happiness By Julie Klam (Riverhead Trade Paperback; $15.00; October 4, 2011 / ISBN: 978-1-59448-541-1) Julie Klam was thirty, single, working as a parttime clerk, and had resorted to consulting tarot cards as to when she would finally meet that special someone. But when he finally showed up, he wasn’t exactly as she had pictured. Flat-faced, eyes askew, neutered, and irresistibly sweet: he was a Boston terrier named Otto. You Had Me At Woof: How Dogs Taught Me The Secrets Of Happiness is the humorous and tender story of a woman who learned life’s most valuable lessons from her dogs. Otto would be the first in a long line of Boston terriers for Klam, and she was over the moon for him. She adored the way he burrowed under the covers and hated water for anything but drinking; she marveled at his good manners, even as he sat across from her at the dinner table. Julie had worried that she was too selfish to ever be able to live with a man, but caring for Otto taught her about the compromises and the giveand-take that love requires. Otto was only the first of many dogs that would enter her life over the years,
Part Wild: One Woman’s Journey with a Creature Caught Between the Worlds of Wolves and Dogs By Ceiridwen Terrill (Scribner, on-sale October 11, 2011 ISBN: 978-1-4156-3481-5) True stories about women’s encounters with the wild have lasting resonance—from Jane Goodall to Dian Fossey—and in her extraordinary memoir Part Wild: One Woman’s Journey With A Creature Caught Between The Worlds Of Wolves And Dogs Ceiridwen Terrill offers a stirring new take on this enduring theme. In and out of unhealthy relationships Terrill adopts Inyo, a canine estimated to be 12.5 percent Siberian husky and 87.5 percent gray wolf, to be a source of protection and a fellow traveler. The story that unfolds is about the alluring call of the wild, the danger and responsibility of heeding that call, and the extraordinary animal love that helps one woman carve out a place for herself in the world. Over the course of almost four years, Terrill and Inyo’s adventures veer between hilarious and heartbreaking. There are peaceful weekends spent hiking in the snowy foothills; joyful adoptions of dog companions; rambunctious romps through dirty laundry, garbage cans and kitchens; and a string of increasingly astonishing escapes out of the yard. There are also clashes brought on by the stress of caring for Inyo, who becomes insatiable without the stimulation of a life lived outdoors. Forced to move and accommodate the complaints of fearful neighbors, her husband’s financial mishaps, and the desires of her space-craving
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and in You Had Me At Woof, Julie Klam chronicles the raucous adventures, humorous foibles, and surprising revelations of letting a dog (or four) into your heart. But Otto was only the beginning. Over the years, as Julie Klam’s family grew to include a husband and daughter, they would take in many beloved canine companions, each with their own set of challenges and revelations. And after Klam became an active volunteer with a local Boston terrier rescue organization, their home became a veritable revolving dog door—from the endlessly hyper Hank, to the solemnly devoted Moses, to the very old foster Dahlia, who surprised them all by giving birth to a pair of puppies. In a rollicking chronicle of her dog adventures, Klam tells the hilarious tale of her not-so-rigorous training as an animal communicator at the new age-y Omega Institute, of trying to manage both her newborn baby and a new puppy at the same time, and, later, of the exhilarating and exhausting chaos of squeezing four dogs and three humans into a Manhattan apartment. Through the triumphs and the losses and the many laughs along the way, Klam reveals how caring for her canine friends has opened her heart, and made her better in the process. Full of humor and warmth, You Had Me At Woof is the poignant tale of how one woman learned the secret to love, health, and happiness from an unexpected source: her dogs.
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contribute essays. Everybody responded, passionate about the stories of their animals and what it’s like to love an animal — in all its joy, frustration, craziness, humor, grief, and gratitude. Cherished includes essays by Anne Lamott, Jane Smiley, Jacqueline Winspear, Carolyn See, Mark Doty, and many others. If you are an animal lover, you have stories. Abercrombie hopes “these stories deepen and confirm your understanding and love of animals, entertain you and make you laugh, and also comfort you if you recently lost a pet.”
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