A Small Furry Prayer
By Steven Kotler
This book is about a husband and wife that left their life in California and took off to New Mexico to start a dog rescue program. These two are truly amazing human beings for giving up their life to dog rescue. Month to month they did not know if they would have enough money to pay their bills but always made it through. I laughed at the humor about the goofy things his dogs do and teared up when they would lose a dog. I learned Willow Tree branches have a form of Aspirin in them that animal eat in the wild. Interesting since I caught my dogs eating them before.
This book also provided an education just like The Lost Dogs. It also touched on the connection humans have with animals. “Archeologists have fourteen-thousand year old skeletons of humans and dogs sharing the same grave sites and so adopted 12,000 BCE as the start date for our cohabitation.” AMAZING!
In previous postings you probably read about me recognizing the pack in my dogs. Having three is very different than having two when it comes to the pack. I can’t stand people that leave their dogs outside in the cold. What is the point in having a dog if you never let them inside? This brings me to another interesting part of the book. “Because dogs live in dens, they never willingly sleep along. Since most people only have one dog, sleeping outside means sleeping alone, and learning to do so requires a difficult psychological adjustment on the dog’s part that frequently leads to later difficulties in pack integration.”
When reading this book I recognized so many things my dogs do and was able to make sense of them. Like when Jack only uses one paw to play with Oscar. He has 70 pounds on Oscar and yet when they play disables himself to only using one paw. Giving himself a personal handicap to even out the fight. I found the following research fascinating. The research below was performed by University of Colorado biologist Marc Bekoff and University of Idaho animal behaviorist John Bayers.
“They reexamed forty years of research on play fighting in squirrel monkeys. Almost immediately they noticed what should have been long obvious: during actual combat squirrel monkeys bite each other, but this rarely happens during play. This is a problem because only the repetition of exact patterns of movement can produce muscle memory and only with muscle memory does practice make perfect. There were other problems as well. The monkeys who played the most as children didn’t win the most fights as adults, and the monkeys who won the most play fights when they were younger didn’t win the most real fights when they were grown up. They found no correlation between play fighting and real fighting. They examined the data in other species and found the same results. If play fighting wasn’t training for real fighting, then what purpose could it possibly serve? Turns out the purpose is moral. The fact that all animals self-handicap might mean the purpose of play fighting isn’t to teach animals how to win, but teach them how to win and lose. All animals probably need to know both the dominant and the subordinate role, because no animal starts out on top, and no animal who lives to old age ends on the top either."
One thing I found really disturbing is in 1800’s dog catchers in New York City were taking stray dogs, putting them into cages and throwing them into the East River. Dog catchers were paid by the dog; as a result pets were missing as well. In 1897 the ASPA got involved to take care of animal control duties and found more humane ways to euthanize dogs.
Towards the end of the book Kotler addresses if animals believe in God and fear death. There is a lot to write about in this section; more than I should put in a blog post. I found this section of the book extremely interesting. Animals do grieve. I witnessed Sydney grieve for Otis when he died. You must buy the book even to just read this section. Really moving not just about dogs but about other mammals that grieve over loss of their mates and pack and the things they do to find comfort.
Another great book! I wish I could be as brave as these two and devote my life to animal rescue. If only I could win the lottery and quit my job. Two truly amazing people I admire. This book provides so much more history and learning than what I describe here. I really encourage you to buy this book and read more about Steve and Joy, their dogs, their cause, and and all the other interesting facts Steve provides. Love it!
By Steven Kotler
This book is about a husband and wife that left their life in California and took off to New Mexico to start a dog rescue program. These two are truly amazing human beings for giving up their life to dog rescue. Month to month they did not know if they would have enough money to pay their bills but always made it through. I laughed at the humor about the goofy things his dogs do and teared up when they would lose a dog. I learned Willow Tree branches have a form of Aspirin in them that animal eat in the wild. Interesting since I caught my dogs eating them before.
This book also provided an education just like The Lost Dogs. It also touched on the connection humans have with animals. “Archeologists have fourteen-thousand year old skeletons of humans and dogs sharing the same grave sites and so adopted 12,000 BCE as the start date for our cohabitation.” AMAZING!
In previous postings you probably read about me recognizing the pack in my dogs. Having three is very different than having two when it comes to the pack. I can’t stand people that leave their dogs outside in the cold. What is the point in having a dog if you never let them inside? This brings me to another interesting part of the book. “Because dogs live in dens, they never willingly sleep along. Since most people only have one dog, sleeping outside means sleeping alone, and learning to do so requires a difficult psychological adjustment on the dog’s part that frequently leads to later difficulties in pack integration.”
When reading this book I recognized so many things my dogs do and was able to make sense of them. Like when Jack only uses one paw to play with Oscar. He has 70 pounds on Oscar and yet when they play disables himself to only using one paw. Giving himself a personal handicap to even out the fight. I found the following research fascinating. The research below was performed by University of Colorado biologist Marc Bekoff and University of Idaho animal behaviorist John Bayers.
“They reexamed forty years of research on play fighting in squirrel monkeys. Almost immediately they noticed what should have been long obvious: during actual combat squirrel monkeys bite each other, but this rarely happens during play. This is a problem because only the repetition of exact patterns of movement can produce muscle memory and only with muscle memory does practice make perfect. There were other problems as well. The monkeys who played the most as children didn’t win the most fights as adults, and the monkeys who won the most play fights when they were younger didn’t win the most real fights when they were grown up. They found no correlation between play fighting and real fighting. They examined the data in other species and found the same results. If play fighting wasn’t training for real fighting, then what purpose could it possibly serve? Turns out the purpose is moral. The fact that all animals self-handicap might mean the purpose of play fighting isn’t to teach animals how to win, but teach them how to win and lose. All animals probably need to know both the dominant and the subordinate role, because no animal starts out on top, and no animal who lives to old age ends on the top either."
One thing I found really disturbing is in 1800’s dog catchers in New York City were taking stray dogs, putting them into cages and throwing them into the East River. Dog catchers were paid by the dog; as a result pets were missing as well. In 1897 the ASPA got involved to take care of animal control duties and found more humane ways to euthanize dogs.
Towards the end of the book Kotler addresses if animals believe in God and fear death. There is a lot to write about in this section; more than I should put in a blog post. I found this section of the book extremely interesting. Animals do grieve. I witnessed Sydney grieve for Otis when he died. You must buy the book even to just read this section. Really moving not just about dogs but about other mammals that grieve over loss of their mates and pack and the things they do to find comfort.
Another great book! I wish I could be as brave as these two and devote my life to animal rescue. If only I could win the lottery and quit my job. Two truly amazing people I admire. This book provides so much more history and learning than what I describe here. I really encourage you to buy this book and read more about Steve and Joy, their dogs, their cause, and and all the other interesting facts Steve provides. Love it!
Check out their rescue organization: http://www.ranchodechihuahua.org/.
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