The fate of the planet and its inhabitants depends largely on the relationship between our species and the nonhuman animals we share the Earth with. To date this “relationship” has been a one-sided, cruel affair with our species exploiting and enslaving nonhuman animals and destroying the natural world.

Reverend Gary Kowalski knows that much needs to be done pertaining to the way that our species treats other sentient beings and the natural world. His book, The Bible According to Noah: Theology as if Animals Mattered, is a thought provoking, informative piece where he provides a different look at some of the Bible’s stories. As Reverend Kowalski points out in the Prologue,

“This is a different kind of Bible, built according to the same principles that Noah may have used in constructing the ark. Unlike that antique life raft, this book is not made of gopherwood. But my intent is, like his, to include every species. For sacred scriptures are like a boat – a vessel designed to carry a culture’s accumulated wisdom across the sea of time, ferrying knowledge to coming generations of how we should live. And the knowledge we need most at this point in history is how to live in tune with the natural world, in harmony with the other creatures whose well-being is vital to our own survival.”

Reverend Kowalski’s insightful and passionate words provide hope that our species will see the light and begin treating nonhuman animals with respect and start living in harmony with nature.

“Surely the great Book of Life cannot already be drawing to a close, with so much still in store. But if our planet has a future, then the chapters that remain to be written must do more than reiterate tales of times gone by. There can be little doubt that our sacred literature is in need of renewal, born of the dawning ecological consciousness that all creatures are interrelated and that all life is sacred. Our new Bible must draw on many sources – the wisdom of native peoples, the spirituality of the East, and the insights of feminism, as well as from the unspoken but powerful teachings of our furred, feathered and finny kindred, who embody a balance and simplicity that humankind desperately needs if we are to avoid destroying Eden once again (perhaps for the very last time).” (pages 115, 116)

His message is clear. Let’s hope we are wise enough to act upon it.

To say that our species poorly treats the nonhuman animals with whom we share the planet is a great understatement. This lack of respect, exploitation and abuse is maintained, in part, by the language that we use when referring to these sentient beings.

In her book Animal Equality: Language and Liberation, Joan Dunayer effectively illustrates how language can harm nonhuman animals. As Carol J. Adams points out in the “Foreword,” “Speciesist language enables us to disregard the suffering and abuse of nonhuman animals.”

While showing how language sustains cruelty to nonhuman animals, Dunayer provides considerable, extensively documented information on such barbaric activities as hunting, sportfishing, zoos, aquariums, vivisection and “animal agriculture.”

In the chapter “Feeding on Flesh, Milk, Eggs, and Lies” Dunayer provides startling information about many of the brutally cruel acts done to nonhuman animals enslaved by humans for food. She describes what debeaking of turkeys and chickens actually entails along with a procedure the agriculture industry calls “toe clipping.” According to Dunayer, “Unanesthetized, many chicks and most newborn turkeys have their three front toes hacked off at the outer joints.” (page 130)

The sheer numbers of nonhuman animals slaughtered for humans is numbing. According to Dunayer, more than 9 billion animals are killed annually in the United States. Many of these live unimaginably cruel lives. In describing an egg factory Dunayer illustrates how a simple name can mislead the public which knows little about the suffering created and perpetuated on factory farms.

“In 1993 I visited a ‘state-of-the-art’ Maryland egg factory with the deceptive name Country Fair Farms. Four windowless warehouses imprisoned a total of half a million hens squeezed nine to a cage. Row after row, four tiers of cages extended into the distance, disappearing into the dimly lit haze. From manure pits directly below, huge mounds of excrement saturated the air with eye-stinging ammonia. Cagemates shared a single water nipple and were forced to climb over one another to reach the food trough in front of their cage. In bursts the birds gave frantic cries, worlds away from the soft clucking of contented hens. With a dazed look they stared outward, as if into empty darkness. However hellish, egg factories bear names, like Happy Hen Egg Ranch, that suggest chicken bliss.” (page 128)

This ignorance on the part of people who consume eggs definitely is not bliss for the chickens who live their entire lives in conditions humans couldn’t even begin to comprehend.

Combating animal abuse must be fought on several fronts – including the language that we use when speaking about the sentient beings we’re fortunate to share this planet with. It is important to use language that gives nonhuman animals the respect that they deserve and to educate our children. Through education we can help ensure that future generations will avoid the mistakes that our species has made up until now and live in harmony with all of Earth’s inhabitants. Using such words as “who” and “she” as opposed to “that” and “it” when referring to nonhuman animals is a good start toward ending our domination of other animals and beginning to live peacefully with them. 

Anyone interested in helping animals would be wise to read this groundbreaking book!

While on vacation in Jamaica, research veterinarian James Mahoney and his wife, Marie-Paule, rescue a three and a half week old Jamaican bush dog who they name Molly. The tiny, spirited puppy is in terrible shape. Some of her problems include that she is blind in one eye, poor sighted in the other and she is infested with fleas and internal parasites. Saving Molly: A Research Veterinarian’s Choices is largely about the Mahoney’s valiant and compassionate fight to save the sick puppy’s life and take her to their home in upstate New York.

Throughout the adventure of rescuing Molly, Saving Molly also describes Dr. Mahoney’s work as a research veterinarian at the Laboratory for Experimental Medicine and Surgery in Primates (LEMSIP) at New York University. Dr. Mahoney, while a vivisectionist, is no ordinary researcher. He shows compassion for the monkeys and chimpanzees who he does research on. He tries to improve the conditions that these innocent victims must endure. He even takes some animals home to care for them or outside during his lunch to share his food, offer his companionship and allow them to explore the surroundings.

 When LEMSIP closes its doors for good on December 31, 1997 Dr. Mahoney found “retirement” for many of the chimpanzees including smuggling 32 young chimps out of the laboratory. Many of the monkeys also found sanctuary with several organizations.  (The fact that the back cover of the book contains kind words about Dr. Mahoney from Jane Goodall, Roger Caras and Alex Pacheco attests to Mahoney’s concern for his research subjects and his efforts to improve their living conditions.)

While pondering the use of animals in research Dr. Mahoney provides information on the controversial topic of vivisection. When describing an animal rights’ debate he was involved in Dr. Mahoney offers the following:

“I couldn’t help thinking that they had chosen the very worst person to debate, for I agreed with a good 95 percent of what they believed in, even to the extent of recognizing that animals do have rights, and we, as human beings, have no right but only a pressing need to experiment on them. I also recognized that without the pressure of the animal rights movement, the scientific community, by and large, would have made little effort to improve the lot of animals in the laboratory; after all, they hadn’t done so until recently, and I saw no reason to suspect that they would have even then, left to their own volition.” (page 175)

In considering his work Dr. Mahoney wonders what his mother, who died when she was 50, would have thought of his being a vivisectionist. “What would she think of me? Would she understand why I was in research, she who had given me my love of animals and had tried to teach me how to be gentle and patient?...Would she have thought me cruel or uncaring because I now used animals in research?”  (pages 220, 221)

Saving Molly is a good read that combines the dramatic rescue of a sick puppy with the controversial subject of vivisection.

When it comes to the other species with whom we share this planet, humans are commonly ignorant, uncompassionate, disrespectful and cruel. The image humans have tried to place on turkeys is not a positive one.

Frequently this remarkable animal is wrongly portrayed as stupid and clumsy. Part of the reason for these incorrect descriptions of the turkey has to do with the fact that our species has cruelly bred this animal for fast growth and unnaturally large size. Turkeys’ dependence on humans is often cited when people state that these birds are not intelligent. However, Karen Davis points out in her book, More Than a Meal: The Turkey in History, Myth, Ritual, and Reality, that these animals are dependent on humans for survival because we have made them so. By breeding fast growing, overweight turkeys we have created birds who are unable to walk fast or fly into trees and who commonly experience “lameness, respiratory congestion, mating infirmities, and heart disease, and most have white feathers that prevent them from camouflaging themselves.” (page 129)

As for the intelligence of turkeys, Davis has the following to say,

“As for their intelligence, the ability of domesticated “meat-type” chickens and turkeys to respond alertly and appropriately to sensory and social stimuli, and to negotiate the physical, social, and emotional milieus in which they find themselves, say, at a sanctuary or in an adoptive home, indicates considerable intelligence, awareness, and learning potentials in these birds. If Sarah, a former battery-caged hen, climbed the stairs in the morning to get me downstairs to fix her breakfast after yelling from the bottom of the steps failed to produce results, was she not displaying purposeful adaptive intelligence? And what about Katie the “broiler” hen, who pecks at my pant legs to get me to bend down and hug her?” (page 130)

Besides intelligence, Davis offers good examples which illustrate that turkeys are good parents and very protective of their young. Citing someone who witnessed a wild turkey protect her ten babies from a hawk, Davis offers the following example of bravery and physical attributes,

“Without warning, the hen took off vertically as if she had stepped on a mine. About 20 feet off the ground, she intercepted and attacked a hawk that was coming in for a baby. The hen hit the hawk with her feet first and with [her] back almost parallel to the ground. The hawk flew toward the back of the field with the hen in pursuit; it turned back towards the babies, and the hen hit again. They both fell about 10 feet and were fighting with their feet, until the hawk headed for the tree line and kept going.” (page 153)

If human animals are going to begin respecting and living in harmony with the nonhuman animals with whom we share the planet, we must learn about these animals and treat them with the compassion and respect which all species deserve. We must also learn from our mistakes and cruel past and start righting these wrongs. In More Than a Meal: The Turkey in History, Myth, Ritual, and Reality, Karen Davis provides considerable knowledge on these fascinating animals and our, to date, deplorable “relationship” with them.

At the age of 50, Helen Weaver moved back into her parent’s home to care for her elderly mother. Not long after this significant change in lifestyle, Weaver adopted a dog who needed a home. Daisy, a beautiful Beagle mix, became a cherished and loyal friend of Weaver’s.

The Daisy Sutra: Conversations With My Dog is really two books in one. There is the beautiful story of Helen Weaver and Daisy’s life together including their relationship and experiences. You don’t have to have shared your life with a canine companion to enjoy this well written, entertaining account of a dog and her human’s friendship – both in life and death.

Besides telling Daisy’s life story, Weaver also discusses the topic of animal communicators. Toward the end of Daisy’s life, Weaver contacted animal communicators who are “able to tune in to the feelings of nonhuman animals and translate those feelings into words a human could understand.” Weaver wanted to know how Daisy was feeling and if she was ready to die. Weaver used three different animal communicators to have conversations with her beloved Daisy – both when the friendly dog was alive and after she had died. Whether you believe in this sort of phenomenon or not, it makes for interesting reading!

To Free A Dolphin looks at Richard O’Barry’s efforts to return captive dolphins to their natural environment. Through his efforts, the reader gets a glimpse of many problems commonly faced while helping animals.  Barry is aware of his contribution to the captive dolphin issue. “I trained the original television star Flipper, you see, and a lot of the trouble captive dolphins are in now is because of me.” It is nice to know that those who were part of the problem can become part of the solution. 

One of the greatest things in life is sharing your time on Earth with companion animals. The human-animal bond is incredibly strong and this special relationship is to be cherished.

How Blessed I Am is a musical tribute to companion animals by Casey & Mary and Friends. Pleasant music combined with beautiful, thought provoking lyrics make this CD a joy to listen to. Charles Phillips does a nice job reading William Britton’s The Legend of Rainbow Bridge.

How Blessed I Am will be enjoyed by those fortunate to have shared their lives with four-legged family members. It will make a particularly thoughtful, comforting gift for those who have ever lost an animal friend.

Song List: 1. How Blessed I Am 2. Capone 3. Savannah 4. Old Blue 5. Chelsea the Guinea Pig 6. A Mind of Their Own 7. Songbird 8. The Legend of Rainbow Bridge 9. Song of Rainbow Bridge 10. Friends

Savannah Publishing, 1922 South Queen Drive, Lakewood, CO., USA, 80227

I always seem to need a new address book. With people always on the move, the number of names and addresses that are crossed out in my book always seem to rival those that are still current. So I was pleased when I received the Dog @ Home Address Book published by Ryland Peters & Small. 

This address book is not only attractive, featuring numerous colour photographs of dogs, but it is also practical containing numerous entries each which includes a space for: name, address, phone, mobile, fax and e-mail. I can now update my address book  in style – and I’ll think I’ll use pencil this time so I can make this address book last longer!

Note: Dog @ Home notecards (20) and envelopes are also available (ISBN: 1841721344)

If you like cats and you need a new place to keep addresses and phone numbers then you may be interested in getting a copy of this quality address book published by Ryland Peters & Small. Attractive photographs of felines complement this book. 

Note: Cat @ Home notecards (20) and envelopes are also available (ISBN: 1841721336)

June Cotner has compiled a good selection of prayers, poems and other writings about animals and the ways in which they greatly enhance our lives. Beautiful words from such people as Saint Francis of Assisi, Chief Dan George, Mohandas Gandhi, Jane Goodall, James Herriot, Chief Seattle and Robert Louis Stevenson are a joy and comfort to read. A few quotations that I found particularly pleasing are:

"Until one has loved an animal, a part of one’s soul remains unawakened." - Anatole France (1844 -1924)

"You think that these dogs will not be in Heaven! I tell you they will be there long before any of us." - Robert Louis Stevenson (1850 - 1894)

"If having a soul means being able to feel love and loyalty and gratitude, then animals are better off than a lot of humans."  - James Herriot (1916 - 1995)

Animal Blessings contains numerous wonderful quotations about animals. While it is not a book about pet loss, it would make a thoughtful gift for anyone who has loved and lost an animal companion.