Furthermore: Where the Headlines Take You

Our Fine Furry (and Feathered) Friends

I used to be on official dog-sitting duty for a couple I know. But not being a dog owner myself, I don't know what I would have done if he'd become ill. How would I make sure their dog was treated well while respecting their wishes for his care? When we keep pets, we are their voices, and they rely on us to communicate their needs to the veterinarians and who help care for them. Dr. Nancy Kay spoke so eloquently about this recently on Fresh Air while promoting her new book, Speaking for Spot, that it brought to mind a few other books about our relationship to animals.

I'm far too squeamish to have considered a career in veterinary medicine, but I love a book that presents a window into a job I'll never have. Luckily, Nick Trout combines memorable episodes and furry patients from his years as a veterinary surgeon to create a gripping story of one day at work. Tell Me Where It Hurts: a Day of Humor, Healing, and Hope in My Life as an Animal Surgeon shares his triumphs and failures with both his four-legged patients and their two-legged owners. Trout includes plenty of medical jargon for the interested--he is a surgeon at one of the largest animal hospitals in the U.S.--but not so much that it's distracting. His real story is of the love and commitment on the part of the pet owners he encounters to their animals. Even though I read this months ago, I still think about the faithful German Shepherd, Sage, and her elderly owner who asks Dr. Trout to do whatever it takes to save her life.

The animals and humans in Amy Sutherland's Kicked, Bitten and Scratched: Life and Lessons at the World's Premier School for Exotic Animal Trainers are of an altogether different breed. Sutherland spent a year following the students at the Exotic Animal Training and Management Program of Moorpark College, California, a rigorous program that trains graduates to work at the highest levels of the profession: from Hollywood to wildlife parks and zoos. Students learn that wild animals are truly wild even in captivity and that they will get bitten, shoved, cornered, and pooped on in the course of their training and their work. The program at EATM stresses that "The animals come first," and is based on a rewards-based training model that centers on communication rather than punishment. Sutherland discovered that this model was useful for training her husband, as well, and chronicled some of the things she learned in her more recent book What Shamu Taught Me About Life, Love, and Marriage.

I never miss an opportunity to recommend My Family and Other Animals by Gerald Durrell. I am a book pusher by nature and will grasp at the thinnest of threads to get this one in the hands of anyone I can. Animal stories are your favorite? Future naturalist Durrell declared his intention to have a zoo when he was six and his fascination with animals began as a child when he kept a variety of fauna: a spider, a tortoise, a dog, two magpies, and even scorpions (that didn't last long). Oh, you like travel? Well, Gerald Durrell's family moved to Corfu in the 30's before the real tourist trade got going in Greece. They had all the adventures an eccentric English family should have, including living in three villas in four years, frightening away a string of tutors, and caring for Gerald's menagerie of animals. Oh, you love gentle family remembrances? This is the memoir of a loving family full of characters from the perspective of its youngest member. The stories about their adventures and daily life aren't 100% factual, but they are always true, and they depict the animals in the family and the family of animals in a way that will make you smile for years to come.

Things Unseen

One thing that photography does is to capture a moment and freeze it forever. But photography can't show the invisible. Or can it? I don't think of something as ephemeral as a cough as recordable, but according to an article in the New York Times, Dr. Gary Settles and Dr. Julian Tang of the University of Pennsylvania teamed up to photograph the disturbances in the air that result from a cough, among other phenomena. They use special techniques that probably don't involve magic, but do involve a curved mirror and a razor blade! The Times has a slideshow of several images including a gas leak and an AK-47 firing.

Another photographic pioneer who spent years perfecting his craft was W.A. Bentley. His fascination was not with capturing the invisible, but the truly singular: snowflakes. He spent years testing photographic materials and equipment. Lucky for him, he lived in Vermont and had a lot of opportunity to perfect his craft. A Caldecott Award winning children's biography about him by Jacqueline Briggs Martin was published a few years ago, Snowflake Bentley. The story of his life is supplemented by facts and beautiful, wood-cut-style illustrations by Mary Azarian.

I share the book Snowflake Bentley with many kids who have to do reports or read a biography for a genre assignment. One of my favorite things to do when I've sold them on the book is to say, "Do you know what else we have? Snow Crystals by Mr. Wilson A. Bentley himself, his actual published book of actual snowflake pictures. He set out to find out if any two snowflakes are alike, and he's pretty sure he did. What do you think?" They leave with the book, ready to explore.

Also capturing something indefinable through his lens, James Mollison photographs in close-up James and Other Apes. Who knew that a book of ape portraits could be so compelling? A quick glance through the book yields amazing portraits of incredible animals. Delving deeper into the introduction by Jane Goodall and the short (often sad) bios in the back reveals these to be portraits of unique personalities with names like Bonny, Jackson, and Fizi. On my subsequent visits with the apes, bonobos, and orangutans in this book, they became part of an extended family: their own, the Great Apes, and all of ours, as animals and humans together on this one planet.