Believe!: review of EAGER

Eager: The Surprising, Secret Life of Beavers and Why They Matter

Ben Goldfarb
Foreword by Dan Flores

Hardcover, $25.95

“One river, underground, irreplaceable, with habitat and wetlands for all.”

The above is the Beaver Pledge, per a beaver enthusiast in California who welcomed the author of this beaver bible to her “home-cum-museum.” Goldfarb meets with all sorts of Beaver Believers (that’s an actual thing) as he studies the history of the Castor Canadensis in the US and shares with his readers the profound importance of these busy rodents in the creation and preservation of wetlands, health of fish (trout, salmon) populations, and all around environmental benefits of, basically, leaving them alone to do what they do. 

But this country is not known for leaving anything alone, especially anything environmental. Trappers decimated beavers in the 18^thand 19^thcenturies. Farmers and fishermen wrongly believed the flooding caused by beaver dams damaged their livelihood (quite the opposite). Humans like free-flowing, straight, deep waterways on which to travel, trade, and scrounge for valuables, whereas beavers absolutely abhor flowing water. By damming up anything that moved, they created ecologically vibrant and hardy ponds and pools, which then fed aquafers, vital in times of drought. A good example of how important beavers are to fight drought is evident in California, and Goldfarb devotes an entire chapter to the Golden State. Fortunately, California has discovered that to fight climate change, the best way may not be to plant more trees, but “to plant more beavers.” But it is amazing to know that this overall environmental progressive state was steadfastly anti-beaver in its policies. Slowly, the powers that be are coming around to recognize the beaver bounty.

EAGER is a fun, fast read, even with the abundant science thrown in there. Goldfarb is passionate and as busy as his subject. And he recognizes the inherently quirky nature of his obsession. Beaver Believers constitute a group of hardworking biologists and laypeople who have made it their mission to bring beavers back to their rightful places in this country. Snickers and sidelong glances be damned: these folks know that without beavers, we lose. With them, we have at least a fighting chance to alleviate some of the inevitable devastation climate change is bringing.

Ben Goldfarb is asked why he is writing about beavers. Are they endangered? Well, no. Despite human’s best efforts there are still millions of these tough little rodents in North America and Europe. Goldfarb notes that beavers returned to the site of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster; they were among the first mammals to return to the volcanic ruin of Mount St. Helens; beavers are enjoying the result of warming in Alaska, nibbling on trees in the once barren tundra. “You can have the rats and cockroaches,” Goldfarb declares. “When the nukes fall, I’m betting on beavers.”

EAGER is a heartening read in these dreadful times that feel more and more like the end times. The fact that there are many people out there who are fighting to save what too many are conniving to destroy makes me feel at once hopeful and guilty. Most of us do too little, myself included. But being aware and spreading that awareness will help save some of this planet for the next generation. I don’t know if I’d ever dress up in a beaver suit for a Beaver Festival, but I’ll definitely hype this wonderful book. 

Go Beavers!

Review Redux: CHASER

In honor of the recent passing of Dr. Pilley, I am reposting this write-up upon the original publication of his book.*

First and foremost, Chaser, the lovely border collie who graces the jacket of this fine book, is part of the Pilley family, not just a research animal or entertainment. She has the innate intelligence of her breed and is, therefore, a willing and fast learner.

Dr. Pilley is a retired professor of psychology with a keen interest in animal cognition. He has read about Rico, a dog who was taught over 200 words and is certain his pup can exceed that number. But more important, he wants to write a scientifically acceptable research paper proving that canine intelligence is real and should be studied more. Rico’s accomplishments were found flawed by the scientific community. Dr. Pilley wants to avoid that pitfall.

So he sets about first teaching Chaser names of toys. “Chaser, this is …” is how he manages to do this. Chaser is eager and needs to have something to herd, so she quickly picks up the names of toys and fetches and herds them on command. By the end of the book, she has 1,022 toys, all of which she knows by name.

That in itself is amazing. But that’s only part of the story. Dr. Philley explores her language abilities further. He wonders whether she can infer a meaning of a word or name. He adds a toy that she has not seen before to a group of familiar toys hidden together. He then asks her to fetch that new toy with a name she has not heard before:

            “ ‘Chaser, find Lounge. Find Lounge.’

            Chaser padded behind the couch while I sat with my back to her. Several seconds passed without her bringing anything to me. I repeated, ‘Chaser, find Lounge. Find Lounge.’ I waited ten more seconds, marking the time by the clock above the television, before turning around to see what Chaser was doing, or rather, not doing….

            I was wondering how much longer I should wait when Chaser slowly came around the couch. In her mouth was a plush miniature chair from a dollhouse set….”

            Chaser learns other commands that are intended partly for her safety or for her “Pop-Pop” and “Nanny’s” sanity, such as “Time out,” and “No toy.” Her reward for getting a right answer is always playtime, rather than treats. Dr. Pilley makes a strong plea for using more play in teaching our children as well.

            Chaser’s language abilities extend far behind simple memory. She understands syntax and semantics. She can be told to paw, nose, or take an object and bring it to another object, thereby understanding a verb and a direct and indirect object. Her accomplishments are always rewarded by play and love. She’s not only a brilliant dog but a very happy one!

*Review is of hardcover edition. Now available in paperback. Click Here for more info.

A Time for Laughter: Humor Books for Animal Lovers

Most of us are bombarded by daily doses of awful reality spewing from social media, television, podcasts, radio, or simply overheard in bars and coffee shops. No place is safe from it. Our country is in turmoil; our planet continues to suffer from a toxic combo of human intervention and neglect. There are young children in cages, animals being tortured, species dying out every minute of every day . . . It's enough to make you really cranky. So, the solution is to latch onto a book that will let you smile, chuckle, giggle, and even audibly guffaw. Here are a few recommendations (add your own to this list!):

YOU HAD ME AT WOOF: How Dogs Taught Me the Secrets of Happiness, by Julie Klam

Memoirs about the dogs in one's life usually turn maudlin. Yes, most of us will outlive our dogs, and the endings sometimes overshadow the beginnings. Klam acknowledges that "the end" is part of every life with a dog, but she doesn't dwell on it; instead, she writes with wit and charm and so much self-deprecating humor about finding, keeping, and living with dogs. Not to say she doesn't have some tragedy over the course of dog-life. We all experience it, grieve and get through it. The lessons learned from the lives and the deaths are equally valuable to her.

After a dream in which she acquires a Boston Terrier named Otto, Julie Klam realizes that spending her free time in front of the TV, waiting for the right person to come into her life is just not working out. She searches for the Otto of her dreams and finds him, a rescue, and thus begins a life with dogs.

Having Otto taught me about the give-and-take that is needed to succeed in a relationship. He gave me the courage to try things and the feeling that there was someone waiting for me. If I could've turned Otto into a man, Pinocchio-style, maybe with a tad less gas and eyes that looked straight ahead, I thought at the time, I might actually be able to have a viable relationship.

Each dog she adopts, fosters, or rescues becomes an integral part of her growing family. Some do not work out as well as she'd like, but their importance to her is never doubted. And ultimately, every moment of their lives, even when cut too short, is worth the pain of their loss.


DOG ON IT, Chet and Bernie Detective series, by Spencer Quinn

If you haven't read this utterly delightful series, you are missing out! And I hear from a little bird (on FaceBook) that a new installment is in the works. Can't wait. There are eight books in the series right now, and can be read in any order.

Chet the dog (or Chet the Jet, as he refers to himself) is the narrator of these books. Everything is from his perspective, and if something distracts him from the goings-on (an animal scurrying; a piece of interesting-smelling garbage), well, you just have to wait until he gets back on track! These are page-turners that you'll want to reread (I'm starting the whole series over this summer). Need a good escape from reality? Go with Chet.

HOW TO RAISE A JEWISH DOG, The Rabbis of the Boca Raton Theological Seminary as told to Ellis Weiner & Barbara Davilman

A parody of the plethora of dog-training manuals written by monks, whisperers, or whatever, HOW TO RAISE A JEWISH DOG illustrates how you can use guilt, shame, passive aggression, sarcasm, and Conditional Unconditional Love to create an unbreakable bond with your dog.

This is a great gift, and also fun to just pick up and read bits and pieces of when you're in the mood for some silliness!

HANUKCATS, And Other Traditional Jewish Songs for Cats, by Laurie Loughlin

Cats can be funny, too! And these rewrites of traditional songs from the cat's point of view will tickle any kitty's fancy.

TAO OF PUG, by Wilson the Pug (with Nancy Levine)

Sepia photos of Wilson along with his commentary on the Tao, make for a delightful book. As Wilson writes, "When the country falls into chaos . . . Sometimes I am glad I can't read."

For our complete list of gift and humor books for animal lovers, go to: http://booksforanimallovers.com/14-gift-books-seasonal

The Meaning of Meow: review of THE INNER LIFE OF CATS: The Science and Secrets of Our Mysterious Feline Companions

THE INNER LIFE OF CATS

The Science and Secrets of Our Mysterious Feline Companions

Thomas McNamee

$27.00, hardcover (our price $21.60)

I have a decided lack of empathy for people who hate cats. How, I wonder, can anyone hate such a creature? In fact, how can a human being hate another species? But then again, I’ve had some exceptional cats in my life, particularly my current cat, Nellie. She’s beautiful—a tuxedo cat with fluffy fur, bright green eyes, and perky white whiskers against a black face. She’s brilliant, with a command of a vocabulary of at least four words: her name, “food,” “dinner,” and “naptime,” and a cat vocabulary of squeaks, purrs, and other noises to which I always respond correctly because she has taught me to. She’s also compassionate, keeping a live-and-let-live attitude towards the mice that annually move into our house (although that may be her advancing years, rather than kindness). Her closest animal friend is our troubled dog Sophie, an alliance we’ve never quite figured out. I’m her best human friend, of course. As she enjoys her seventeenth year, she’s taken to burrowing under the covers with me on cold nights, emitting a high-pitched purr to prompt me to make room for her. 

According to The Inner Life of Cats, however, Nellie may not be particularly exceptional after all. Cats have lived intimately with humans for centuries, and yet have remained true to their catlike nature, never succumbing to the anthropomorphic vision we have for our pets. They learn our habits, culture, and language, and yet choose what to attend to and what to ignore.

And they have learned how to speak to us.

Nellie’s purr will gently wake me, and she seems to know that there’s no need to meow. She will meow if she’s hungry or would like to consider going outside (weather depending), or if she’s just saying hello. Cats do not, according to author Thomas McNamee, meow to each other (except when yowling during a fight or before sex). They’ve developed meowing over the centuries to speak to humans, in order to have their needs and desires catered to. If that isn’t brilliant, what is?

In his new book, nature writer McNamee begins his analysis of cats and their unusual place in human history in his own backyard, when a tiny black stray kitten wanders onto his Montana farm in the dead of winter. Estimating her birth month to be August, he names the kitten Augusta and soon finds himself enthralled with her antics, personality, and quirks. Why did she eschew laps, and yet adored being pet? Where did she go when she slipped outdoors for hours? Basically, what was his little cat thinking and feeling? She came in from the wild, and yet settled into domestic life quite easily, keeping her wildness intact at the same time.

McNamee also explores the amazing gattari, caretakers of cats in Rome, and the problem of (and possible solutions to) the feral cat populations throughout the world. He discusses self-proclaimed cat whisperers (I was particularly pleased that he spent a few pages on Buck Brannaman, the original horse whisperer, whose clinic he has hosted at his ranch) and debates about behavior modification, nutrition, and indoor versus outdoor life. 

McNamee is as disdainful of ailurophobes as I am, but he points out that a substantial number of people harm or kill cats without overt vindictiveness. They are simply ignorant, believing falsely that cats will survive with or without people to care for them. So when they move, they leave kitty behind to fend for himself. Or they have a baby and fall for the urban myth of cats suffocating babies in their cribs, and so drop kitty off at a local shelter, where she’ll likely be euthanized. (I have no patience with people who discard their pets when a baby joins the family.) 

But above all, this is a book about one man’s love for his cat and for all things feline. His heartfelt tribute to Augusta is a perfect counterbalance to the hard-pressed facts about felines. It’s fitting, therefore, that the final chapter of this marvelous book is titled “Love.” I read it and in fact most of the book, with Nellie sleeping peacefully on my lap. I suggest all cat-loving readers do the same.

Gone & Forgotten?: Review of THE SIXTH EXTINCTION (paperback edition)

The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History

Elizabeth Kolbert

$17.00, pa (our price: $13.60)

Unless you’ve been living under a rock or working at the White House, you know the rapid decline we are witnessing in the earth’s species, due primarily to global warming. The ultimate culprit in the changes and destruction of our ecosystems is us. Climate change is due mostly to human activity. If anyone continues to deny that, they are simply ignoring reality. The levels of CO₂ in our atmosphere are the highest they’ve been for 15 million years, and the rate of rise is phenomenal. Species of plants and animals cannot adapt quickly enough, leading us toward what many believe will be an apocalyptic extinction “event”: the sixth mass extinction on this planet.

This is not an uplifting subject. It’s horrifying to realize how many creatures are disappearing right before our eyes because of our clumsy interventions. But it’s an important subject, and one worth learning about if only to grasp onto some hope of saving what we can.

In this fascinating, eye-opening book, The Sixth Extinction, (now in paperback), Elizabeth Kolbert explores the history of our concept of extinction, since that came long after the reality of it. Like children playing with matches, humans have blundered along the last few hundred years, wiping out creatures left and right, with no clear understanding of the consequences of our actions. Kolbert steps right into the muck, literally at times, alongside field scientists, and writes warmly about the people on the front lines of our troubled environment and the flora and fauna they are chronicling and defending and desperately trying to save. She notes the wondrous aspects of our species as well: how many people there are working diligently to undo the damage we have all caused. Most of us do not want to see our planet’s destruction, and we do try, either through monetary gifts or lifestyle changes, to reduce our personal impacts. Whether or not that will work is a large and uncomfortable question.

There have been five mass extinctions in the history of the earth. We humans were not responsible for those catastrophes, so no guilt there. In the broadening of our recognition of ecosystems and their demise, we see the rapidity of the current extinction in progress. It is wiping out species at such an alarming and disheartening rate, that there are some we’ll never know before they are gone. Forever. 

We know that trophy hunting, habitation destruction, and poaching are leading to the imminent loss of lions, elephants, and other African wildlife, possibly in the next few decades. We also know that acidification of the oceans and warming temperatures are destroying coral reefs, and thus a whole plethora of dependent creatures, whose demise will then affect those who depend on them for food, including us. In human terms, all of this isn’t news. Geologically speaking, however, it’s happening at lightning speed. Kolbert writes:

“Warming today is taking place at least ten times faster than it did at the end of the last glaciation, and at the end of all those glaciations that preceded it. To keep up, organisms will have to migrate or otherwise adapt, at least ten times more quickly. . . . How many species overall will be capable of moving fast enough remains an open question, though . . . in the coming decades we are probably going to learn the answer, whether we want to or not.”

In order to migrate to more conducive climates, species need a pathway. But we’ve disrupted those paths with our development or fragmentation, adding yet another hurdle. 

Among the many ways humans have mucked up the ecosystem of the planet is through invasive species. We’ve recreated the supercontinent of 175 million years ago, by essentially going backward, jumbling everything up again in what scientists refer to as “the new Pangaea.” Thus, we have honey bees here in North America—maybe not a bad thing—but we also have the Japanese beetle and purple loosestrife. And we have lost millions of bats thanks to a fungus that has invaded their colonies. Not to mention the stink bug that has invaded the eastern coast (and my house). Modern humans are perhaps the most invasive of invaders, having pushed out the Neanderthals some 30,000 years ago, possibly through killing, or through competition, but not before actually procreating with them. (So yes, we all have some Neanderthal in our DNA, although it may not show up in your 23 & Me report.) In that way, I suppose we actually saved our early cousin from total extinction, but I doubt that was much comfort to the last one left.

Is this all just bad news that you’d rather not read about? Maybe, and I understand the desire to turn off the bad news. It’s permeating our lives these days. But we are the creators of this destruction and have been the benefactors as well, so we need to understand what’s happening in order to find a way to bring some light to the growing shadow. Human ingenuity has changed our ecosystem; perhaps it can help reverse destruction as well. Some are hopeful that just by concentrating on local changes we can make—using renewable energy, eating sustainably grown and harvested food—we can alleviate the problems. Possibly, but what we know for sure is that hiding from it will not make it go away. Denying it will not make it less a reality. And blaming the messengers will simply backfire. What we must face up to now is that the Sixth Extinction will include humans in its grip. If that doesn’t stir the Neanderthal within, then nothing will.

Nobody Knows Better... Review of WHAT IT'S LIKE TO BE A DOG

What It's Like to Be a Dog

And Other Adventures in Animal Neuroscience

Gregory Berns

$28 (hardcover) Our Price: $22.40

We humans are arrogant creatures. We think because we have written language, etc., that we are the smartest creatures on earth. But, to paraphrase Moonstruck, what we don't know about animals is a lot.

Greg Berns, a psychologist and neuroscientist, has taken upon himself the task of finding out just what is going on inside of our fellow creatures, primarily dogs. His first book, How Dogs Love Us, detailed his experiments with his dog Callie and others by using an MRI to gauge their brain responses to their owners' smells and voices. Since then, he has pursued further investigation of brain activity in dogs, trying to decipher the difference between receiving a treat, for example, to seeing the dog's owner.

The experiments are slow-going and complex, due to the intricacies of the training, but fascinating in their chronicle. As Dr. Berns continued to work with dogs, he also explored the brains of dolphins and sea lions. (Who knew sea lions have a sense of rhythm?) His work opened up more questions about communication between humans and dogs or other animals. He references Chaser, the border collie famous for knowing over one thousand names of objects. Chaser was also able to understand simple syntax and directions, as in retrieving a toy and placing it on top of another toy. But was Chaser unusual? Berns suggests that certain breeds may be more adept at learning language, and he questions whether or not dogs actually know their names or if, instead, they've learned that when certain sounds are made, something (probably good) is about to happen. When I call my dog Katrina, she looks up, expectant. Is she looking up because the sound I made might mean we're going somewhere, or that she's getting a bone? Perhaps the only way to know what she is thinking, hearing, feeling, or expecting, is to study what's happening inside of her brain, and seeing what parts "light up" and when. But is knowing what my dog is thinking important? Can't we just mosey along as we are, ignorant of what thoughts or dreams she is experiencing? After all, I'm the human, and therefore the important one, right?

Stepping into another's shoes (or paws), feeling empathy, is a trait humans have capacity for and yet we seem to use it as little as possible. The current political climate is certainly an indication of that. And as we outgrow our world, the tribalism we're experiencing is bound to expand to the point of an inability to communicate entirely. So understanding what it's like to be a dog, or a horse, or even, yes, a cat, goes a long way to understanding each other. Although dogs may not understand or care what's going on inside of us, they do care about us, and seem to want, for some reason, to be with us. They don't see color or ethnicity, and certainly do not understand what political party we vote for (although that may have long-term effects on their well-being, but that's another story). I read books such as Dr. Berns' because I want to know why: why does the horse I am riding want to do well? Just for the praise? And why does my dog follow me from room to room, just to be near me? Am I really that great?

All of this is a long way of saying that exploring the intricacies of a dog's brain is not an academic pursuit, or knowledge for the sake of knowledge. Understanding animals leads to better understanding of ourselves. Being obtuse, or lacking in any self-reflection, is a dangerous form of ignorance that may yet lead us to catastrophe. Books such as this may serve as a bigger wake-up call than even he intended.