Having a pet is not an even trade. Sure, we provide the gravy train, but think about what it would cost us to see live comedians, acrobats, or therapists who are half as entertaining or therapeutic as our dogs, cats, horses, hamsters, or even goldfish? I don’t know about you, but I’d be in the poorhouse in no time flat.
Smart, loyal, and offering unconditional love: anyone who has ever curled up with a good book and a good pet (or two, or more) understands about a reader’s best friend.
There is even some evidence that pets help us live longer. But whether they add quantity, without a doubt—despite the occasional hairball barf or a devoured couch or two—they enrich the quality of our years. If we let them, pets groom us into being better people.
The occasion of National Love Your Pet Day (Feb. 20 this year) probably begs the question of ‘aren’t they all?’ But it is a fine excuse to extol books that extol pets.
From our earliest “Pat the Bunny” days, we revel in stories that feature our furry, feathered, finned (and otherwise adorned) friends. Here are a few featured books that you won’t want to miss.
Sit. Stay. Read.
Lassie, the book and television wonder dog had nothing on Roselle, real-life canine hero and star of “Thunder Dog: The True Story of a Blind Man, His Guide Dog, and the Triumph of Trust at Ground Zero.” When the plane hit the first World Trade Center building, Michael Hingson and his guide dog, Roselle, were at work on the 78th floor.
The duo’s escape from the burning building followed by their harrowing journey home on that terrible day, is riveting reading, but that is only part what makes this a great story. Hingson has been blind from birth and among his many attributes is a physics major, salesman, world-traveler, advocate, author, and husband. Reading about his life’s journey and unstoppable “Why Not?” attitude should inspire everyone. (P.S. Guide dogs rock!)
Lovers of Dickensian stories should enjoy this story of an abandoned and freezing waif that is rescued from a library’s book return after a 15 below zero night. Only this waif happens to be an 8-week old orange and white, wide-eyed kitten.
“Dewey: The Small-Town Library Cat Who Touched the World” epitomizes what any pet-rescuer already knows—they save us as much (or more than) we do them. In the human-feline autobiography, Dewey (the cat and the namesake book) offers proof of how animals can transform lives. Dewey’s influence just happened to reach far, far beyond his humble beginning as a small-town library cat in Spencer, Iowa.
“To Dance with a White Dog” tells the gentle tale of an elderly widower’s life after loss. I loved this little novel, set in North Carolina, even before it was made into a movie starring the late Hume Cronyn and Jessica Tandy. It manages to be sweetly nostalgic without being sappy.
Photography fans, reading fans, writing fans, and feline fans: “Writers and Their Cats” is a tribute to scribes and their nine-lived muses. Mark Twain and Stephen King were my personal favorites in this whimsical little collection. Who cannot love a white-suited, cigar-smoking, kitten-holding Twain (owner of more than 30 bewhiskered ones) and his sage advice to “rent a local cat” whilst on a summer vacation.
“If man could be crossed with the cat, it would improve man but deteriorate the cat.”
Mark Twain