Animal Care

Just like people, dogs need nutritious food and regular exercise to stay healthy and strong. Learn how to take the best possible care of your dog from tip to tail.

Steve Mann has been a professional dog trainer and behaviourist for over 30 years. He has trained over 100,000 dogs and thousands of professional dog trainers. He is founder and chairman of the Institute of Modern Dog Trainers and presents seminars, courses and workshops for dog trainers and behaviourists worldwide. Whether you're living with a brand-new puppy, an adult dog or rescue dog, Steve’s methods will give you everything you need to know.

One dark and stormy winter night, outside his remote New England farmhouse, Hal Borland heard howling. At the door were a half-starved black-and-white mutt and his puppy companion. While reluctant to welcome these uninvited guests into their home, Hal and his wife gave them refuge, finally naming them Pat and Mike. When a local boy lost his dog, and the Borland's gave Mike to him, Pat's strong personality blossomed, and he becomes a treasured companion and member of the family.

World-renowned trainer Sean O’Shea, owner and founder of The Good Dog Training and Rehabilitation, saw some recurring themes consistently derailing the human/dog relationship. Sean discovered that countless trainers and owners were struggling to not only understand these issues but to put clear, concise, easy-to-understand words to them. The Good Dog Way: Love Them by Leading Them, fills that incredibly important gap. Until its release, dog training books almost exclusively focused on training mechanics, commands, and rules, but had missed the all-important "why".

Do you suffer from “Pony Fever”? Have you been waiting a long time to add a horse to your family? Have you carefully considered a match between you and your new equine buddy? Have you decided exactly where he’s going to live and how you’re going to keep him happy? Do you have moments when the idea of bringing a horse into your life is scary? Horses are unlike any other animal companion. They’re too big to live in your house, so they have to live in specialized homes of their own.

Cats have been popular household pets for thousands of years, and their numbers only continue to rise. Today there are three cats for every dog on the planet, and yet cats remain more mysterious, even to their most adoring owners. In Cat Sense, renowned anthrozoologist John Bradshaw takes us further into the mind of the domestic cat than ever before, using cutting-edge scientific research to explain the true nature - and needs - of our feline friends. Tracing the cat’s evolution from solitary hunter to domesticated companion, Bradshaw shows that cats remain independent, predatory, and wary of social contact.

The story that became a global sensation: Sophie, the Australian cattle dog who was lost at sea and swam six miles through shark-infested waters to a remote island where she survived in the wild for five months.... It was just another day in paradise as Jan and Dave Griffith, along with their blue cattle dog, Sophie, motored out of Mackay Marina for a gorgeous weekend at sea. But when the sky suddenly darkened and the waves turned fierce, the unthinkable happened: Sophie disappeared overboard.

In their New York Times best-selling book The Genius of Dogs, husband-and-wife team Brian Hare and Vanessa Woods lay out landmark discoveries from the Duke Canine Cognition Center and other research facilities around the world to reveal how your dog thinks and how we humans can have even deeper relationships with our best four-legged friends.

An essential companion to your lovable Dachshund, this guide covers everything you should know about Dachshunds, from buying a new puppy to dealing with old age and how best to look after your precious dog.

Dewey's story starts in the worst possible way. Only a few weeks old, on the coldest night of the year, he was stuffed into the returned book slot at the Spencer Public Library. He was found the next morning by library director, Vicki Myron, a single mother who had survived the loss of her family farm, a breast cancer scare, and an alcoholic husband. Dewey won her heart, and the hearts of the staff, by pulling himself up and hobbling on frostbitten feet to nudge each of them in a gesture of thanks and love. For the next 19 years, he never stopped charming the people of Spencer....

Understand what your horse is saying to you and build a profound and lasting connection. If you ever thought that some people were “natural-born horse communicators,” know that all of them have honed their abilities through experience, observation, and the understanding that each horse is a unique being. This guide seeks to help you strengthen your connection and build trust with your horse.

First published in 1733 as Ecole de Cavalerie by François Robichon de la Guérinière, this book is considered as the beginning of modern equitation. The book is most famous for its introduction of the shoulder-in. The theories in this book provide the basis for all modern equitation, and it is probably the most important work on the subject ever written. It was translated from the French to English by Tracy Boucher.

From the author of the critically acclaimed bestseller, Scent of the Missing, comes a heartwarming and inspiring story that shows how dogs can be rescued and can rescue in return. For her first book, Susannah Charleson was praised for her unique insight into the kinship between humans and dogs, as revealed through canine search and rescue. In The Possibility Dogs Charleson chronicles her journey into the world of psychiatric-service and therapy dogs trained to serve the human mind, a journey that began as a personal one. After a particularly grisly search led to a struggle with PTSD, Charleson credits healing to her partnership with search dog Puzzle. Inspired by that experience and having met dogs formally trained to assist in such crises, Charleson learns to identify abandoned dogs with service potential, often plucking them from shelters at the last minute, and to train them for work beside hurting partners, to whom these second-chance dogs bring intelligence, comfort, and hope.

In addition to many expert breeders, practitioners in the fields of canine behavioral psychology, veterinary health, and breed-specific ownership have contributed with invaluable advice and tips. So whether you are looking for basic instruction or more advanced advice, you will find it all here.

Kavin reveals how dog merchants create markets for dogs, often in defiance of the usual rules of supply and demand. She takes an investigative approach and meets breeders and rescuers at all levels, shedding much-needed light on an industry that most people don't even realize is an industry. Kavin's goal is to advance the conversation about how all dogs are treated, from puppy mills to high-kill shelters. She shows that a great deal can be improved by understanding the business practices behind selling dogs of all kinds.

Caleb Carr has had special relationships with cats since he was a young boy in a turbulent household, famously peopled by the founding members of the Beat Generation, where his steadiest companions were the adopted cats that lived with him both in the city and the country. As an adult, he has had many close feline companions, with relationships that have outlasted most of his human ones. But only after building a three-story home in rural, upstate New York did he enter into the most extraordinary of all of his cat pairings: Masha, a Siberian Forest cat who had been abandoned as a kitten.

Joal Derse Dauer was donating blankets at a local no-kill shelter when an injured and despondent dog caught her eye. With three "fur babies" already at home, Joal wasn't looking to adopt another dog. But there was something special about Sadie. With patience, hope, and plenty of love, Joal saw her canine companion grow in strength and joy. And before long, she discovered that sweet Sadie had transformed her life in ways she never could have imagined.

Letters with Smokie captures an epistolic exchange between Dan Goodley and Rod Michalko, or rather, Rod Michalko's late guide dog, Smokie. A lively exploration of human-animal relationships and disability as disruption, disturbance, and art, the book offers a refreshing re-evaluation of cultural misunderstandings of disability.

Rhiow seems a perfectly ordinary New York City cat. Or so her humans think - but she is much more than she appears. With her partners Saash and Urruah, she collaborates with human wizards, protecting the earth from dark forces and helping to maintain the network of magical gateways between different realities.

From playful and hilarious accounts of life with cats to heartwarming tales of cat courage, healing and learning, each touching story in Chicken Soup for the Cat Lover's Soul celebrates the special bond we share with our cats.