Quotes from Ted Kerasote

Only when walking with her person did she attack other dogs. More than likely, these attacks occurred because the white Shepherd felt compelled to protect Ms. W. This need was probably fostered by Ms. W. herself as she transmitted her own fears to her dog.

Perhaps Ms. W., like thousands of people, had gotten a big dog on purpose—a dog of a breed with a genetic predisposition toward aggressive behavior—in the hope that it would protect her.

Che Guevara's manual: Know the terrain; hit the enemy at its weakest; never use brute strength.

As one of Descartes's disciples, Nicolas de Malebranche, wrote: [I]n animals, there is neither intelligence nor souls as ordinarily meant. They eat without pleasure, cry without pain, grow without knowing it; they desire nothing, fear nothing, know nothing: and if they act in a manner that demonstrates intelligence,

The cleft in her back hooves smelled far more strongly of pronghorn—that tangy mix of herbivore and sage—than did her front hooves.

Some dogs, thankfully, can break us of our patronizing habits—as Merle did for me.

the first two years of a dog's life equal twenty-four years in human years, and then each subsequent year of the dog's life equals four years for the human.

We made small talk while waiting, the conversation circling back to dogs—the ones we had, the ones we had known—and how it seemed unfair that parrots and turtles lived so long.

It's very important for an athletic dog like you to have a massage each day.

I knew for certain that being accorded a biography isn't dependent on one's species or one's fame.

Do they miss being sexed? These are hard questions to answer, but we can think of them in this way: If we were neutered before sexual maturity, we probably wouldn't miss what we didn't know. So may it be with our dogs.

acupuncture) and acutherapy are considered an integral part of veterinary medicine.

Can you provide the necessary care? (I could.) Will such care so interfere with your own life as to create serious problems with you or your family? (It wouldn't.) Will the cost involved become unbearably expensive? (No.)

For the first three problems—roaming, mounting, and urine marking in the house—only 25 to 40 percent of the dogs showed any resolution. With aggression toward other dogs, one of the most common reasons cited by dog owners for castrating their animal, resolution of the problem was even lower: Only 10 to 15 percent of dogs who lost their balls also lost their desire to fight other males.

Konrad Lorenz, who won a Nobel Prize in 1973 for his work on the organization of social behavior in animals, often spoke of his Greylag geese "falling in love." Occasionally, his colleagues took him to task for being anthropomorphic, and he would reply, "It is the accurate term for a real phenomenon for which there is no other name. I consider the term appropriate to any species, if that is in fact what they do.

The only problem with basing dog training on wolf society is that many of our notions about how wolves live have recently been overturned. In short, wolves live more egalitarian lives than any of us suspected.

Thus, even though the opportunity to dabble exists for the alpha male, faithfulness is the norm.

These techniques should be regarded as surgical and/or medical procedures under state veterinary practice acts.

when wolves have been protected, "multi-generational packs" have developed. "These," he says, "have a deep bench.

endorses massage therapy for dogs, as well as the use of "nutraceuticals

wolf society has an organized structure but also has free will.

A healthier and far more nuanced way to address the risk of heartworm is to calculate the first date that the local temperature consistently stays above 57 degrees and when it once again dips below that. For the mid-Atlantic states and New England, this would mean giving your dog its first monthly heartworm treatment around June and the last one in November—six months of taking a toxic chemical instead of twelve.

our hearing is superior to that of dogs in this regard. We have a spatial acuity of less than 1 degree, whereas dogs can localize sounds only in a 4- to 8-degree range.

submission can be seen in an entirely different light. It's a passage, not an enduring characteristic, and it serves a useful purpose. Juveniles that behave solicitously are more likely to gain access to food defended by adults. This enhances their nutritional condition and gives them a better chance, when they disperse, to form their own packs and become alphas. Submission is also necessary for survival—someone needs to coordinate group hunting.