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Title: The Social Lives of Dogs: The Grace of Canine Company by Elizabeth Marshall Thomas, Jared Taylor Williams ISBN: 0-7434-2236-8 Publisher: Pocket Books Pub. Date: June, 2001 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $13.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.44 (18 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: good book
Comment: I was inspired to write this review by reading one already written which claims that Thomas calls everyone with a pedigreed dog, a castrated dog, or a leash on a dog a "dog fascist". Not so at all. I am surprised that people read so carelessly (if they read these books at all). One of her own dogs is pedigreed, as she says in her book. Yes, she disapproves of castrating male dogs BUT NOT OF VASECTOMY, which she recommends as an alternative. Nor does she disapprove of using a leash. She says she doesn't use a leash on her own dogs on her own property in the country, but she tells of using a leash in the city, so presumably she uses leashes when she needs to. This is FAR from disapproving of leashes in general. I wish that reviewers would read more carefully before they blather on erroneously. This is a great book.
Rating: 5
Summary: Another wonderful work from Elizabeth Marshall Thomas
Comment: For those who are already fans of Elizabeth Marshall Thomas and her fine anthropologist's approach to studying animal culture, THE SOCIAL LIVES OF DOGS may be the finest jewel in her crown of works. This book chronicles an approximate fifteen-year study which included, in the order that they came to live in the Thomas household, Sundog, Misty, Pearl, Ruby, and Sheilah--dogs of varying breeds and mixes. Thomas tells, in her own beautiful and compassionate way, the story of each dog's incorporation into the lives of the other dogs, people, cats, and birds in her home. She succeeds beautifully in her sincere effort always to explain her animal observations and then to try to understand and interpret from the animal's point of view. What more could one ask of an anthropologist/ethologist?
For me, Thomas taps into something very deep and important--something that's difficult to find words for. But I know that it has to do with a message that says it's okay to feel deep emotions about your animals, to talk to them and hear their answers, and to sense and acknowledge their deep feelings. Even though many of us have known and felt this intuitively, it is neither the message that our Judeo/Christian tradition nor our Linnean scala natura science of classification has wanted to deliver to us.
In the introduction she poses the questions: "Can we understand the mind of an animal? . . .[do] animals have consciousness?" and then proceeds to say that for some scientists . . . "the view that animals are incapable of conscious thought, or even of emotion, has acquired an aura of scientific correctness, and at the moment is the prevailing dogma, as if some very compelling evidence to the contrary was not a problem." This reader is happy to say that her own experiences with animals have certainly provided "compelling evidence to the contrary."
On a final note, THE SOCIAL LIVES OF DOGS, even though written around the lives of the canines concerned, reads a little bit like Thomas's personal memoir. She puts a lot into perspective in the excellent epilogue, which I found to be the real icing on the cake. Even as Thomas finds "grace" in canine company, so does she tell their story with much grace. This book is a wonderful read!
Rating: 1
Summary: Not sure what to think....
Comment: I borrowed this from the local library thinking it would be a great and interesting book. I love reading about animals, particularly dogs, and love realizing that I am not the only 'animal-nut' out there. However....some nuts are just nuttier and I would definitely have to classify Thomas as one of them.
She talks about anthropomorphism and how it is not as negative a term as many scholarly and scientific people would like us to believe. I don't exactly disagree with her, but I do think lines need to be drawn between what is human and what is not. Dogs are not. Yes, they are living, breathing, FEELING creatures but that still doesn't make them human. I don't doubt that they, like most if not all animals, think and feel but I do think that Thomas is in great danger of doing a disservice to animals in the way that she projects onto them.
I had to stop reading the book b/c, honestly put, I felt that I was reading the diary of a kook; someone who THOUGHT she knew what she was talking about but unfortunately someone who was TOO extreme in her ideas and opinions.
I would not recommend the book, nor do I wish to read anything else by her. I feel her ideas/opinions are too clouded by emotion and a desire to see what is not/could not/should not be there. She is the reason why science has made anthropomorphism negative.
Thank god I borrowed and didn't buy.
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Title: The Hidden Life Of Dogs by Elizabeth Marshall Thomas ISBN: 0671517007 Publisher: Pocket Books Pub. Date: 01 July, 1996 List Price(USD): $12.95 |
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Title: The Tribe of Tiger: Cats and Their Culture by Elizabeth Marshall Thomas, Jared Taylor Williams ISBN: 0743426894 Publisher: Pocket Books Pub. Date: June, 2001 List Price(USD): $13.95 |
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Title: The Secret Lives of Dogs: The Real Reasons Behind 52 Mysterious Canine Behaviors by Jana Murphy, The Editors of Pets: Part of the Family, The Editors of Pets: Part of the Family ISBN: 157954312X Publisher: Rodale Press Pub. Date: 30 March, 2000 List Price(USD): $14.95 |
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Title: The Other End of the Leash by Patricia McConnell ISBN: 0345446798 Publisher: Ballantine Books Pub. Date: 04 June, 2002 List Price(USD): $25.95 |
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Title: How To Speak Dog: Mastering the Art of Dog-Human Communication by Stanley Coren ISBN: 074320297X Publisher: Free Press Pub. Date: 17 April, 2001 List Price(USD): $14.00 |
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