Impact4Animals Books
Every month, as Proprietor of the Five Bone Bookshop, I bark about five recent publications I’ve awarded the status of “Impact4Animals Books”: Books that your Canine Reviewer believes hold the power to transform the hearts and minds of Readers, by opening their eyes to their own close kinship with all Sentient Beings – including us Dogs!
Impact4Animals Books change the lives of millions of readers, who with enlightened understanding then act to improve the lives of Animals. The first five books I’ve awarded Impact4Animals status eloquently describe the tragedy of America’s unwanted Companion Dogs and Cats, offer solutions, call for change. In future posts, I’ll feature books that tell amazing true stories about Animals, present new research that explores our close kinship with Humans, describe the discovery of new (and ancient) ways of communication, shed light on our closely related origins, and reaffirm the inestimable value of life for all feeling citizens of our Earth.
Five Impact4Animals Books About Animal Shelters:
When I hear that HSUS says millions of once-wanted Companion Dogs and Cats are abandoned, and “four million are ‘put down’ in U.S. Shelters each year”, I lose my customary joy, and feel great sadness. Many heroic Humans fight to rescue Animals, but the abuse, the abandonment and the killing go on, because millions of other Humans just don’t understand. Yet among those who care, so many don’t know how to help, since they can’t all take the time, fight the legal battles or endure the expense and heartache of hands-on care and rescue.
But there is another way to make a difference! Take a look at the following selection of Impact Books, with their photographs that woof a thousand words about Dog Shelters; read of the amazing heart and work of rescued Dogs, the dignity and close kinship of “Man’s Best Friend”. The Paw is mightier than the sword, I say, and few readers of these powerful literary (and photographic) efforts will escape unchanged!
Take, for example, “Shelter Dogs”, a book of photographic Dog portraits by Traer Scott. Starting with the poignant “Dare I hope?” eyes of her cover portrait Dogs, “these photos reveal the strikingly intense emotion, dignity, and even humor that Scott saw in each face, despite the Dog’s circumstances”. What Human can fail to understand the meaning of the looks in all those beautiful eyes?
This is the deeply touching photo (right) that pulls readers into “One at a Time: A Week in an American Animal Shelter” by Diane Leigh. Did you know that although half the households in America include an Animal Companion, shelters take in eight to twelve million lost and unwanted Dogs and Cats a year? In these unforgettable stories of this nation's homeless Animal tragedy, readers see the real faces behind the numbers, and experience “the “miracles and heartbreak that play out every day in our nation's shelters... one Animal at a time”. Yet I loved to hear that “this tragedy can be ended and each one of us can be part of the solution... offering [Humans] the chance to become better people, to reawaken their connection with other living beings, and to reaffirm the sanctity of life itself.”
In “Disposable Dogs: Heartwarming, True Stories of Courage and Compassion”, Steve Swanbeck impacts readers’ lives by introducing “last chance” Dogs who are smart, heroic, funny, and loyal. “There's the young Saint Bernard who was adopted from a shelter at the eleventh hour and went on to become the mascot for a professional football team...the neighborly golden retriever who was abandoned when her owner died and soon afterward saved a toddler from falling off a cliff...the elderly blind mutt and deaf old mongrel who found each other near the end of their lonely lives and remained soul mates forever.” “Disposable Dogs” celebrates “the meaningful, wondrous lives that have been rescued by good people who make a difference” in a book that will also make a significant difference.
In “Rescue Ink: How Ten Guys Saved Countless Dogs and Cats, Twelve Horses, Five Pigs, One Duck, and a Few Turtles” by Denise Flaim, ten tough and tattooed bikers rescue animals in danger. “Working from tips, they have rescued countless animals, including a dognapped bulldog and 180 cats from the home of a hoarder. In between rescues, they've protested the barbaric practices of a horse slaughterhouse, visited schools to educate children about animal kindness and that ‘abusers are losers,’ and participated in Puppy Mill Awareness Day in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. What will be the likely impact of this book? How many “tough guys” do you think will allow themselves to feel compassion, now that Johnny O, Batso, Big Ant, G and Angel have shown the way?
In “Miracle Dog: How Quentin Survived the Gas Chamber to Speak for Animals on Death Row”, author Randy Grim describes how, “when he got a phone call from a St. Louis Animal Shelter worker pleading with him to take yet another unwanted Dog to his no-kill shelter, he had no idea that the Dog would change his entire life. Quentin had survived a horrifying procedure still practiced in some animal shelters: ‘euthanasia’ by carbon monoxide gas poisoning. The account of Quentin's ordeal and the crusades Grim and Quentin have undertaken on behalf of abandoned animals is sobering, hilarious, and ultimately uplifting.” Exemplifying the impact of this book on readers, Ranny Green, book reviewer for The Seattle Times, writes: "Through 30 years of reviewing pet books, I can't remember one that has left such a lasting impression."
Best-selling publications like those I’ve called “Impact4Animals Books” reach millions of readers across America, the books’ photographs deeply touching even more browsers in bookstores and through the Internet. These books affect children (the place to start educating and enlightening the next generation), the homeowners who adopt “pets”, and people of every walk of life. Do you care about Animals, but have no time to volunteer at a Shelter? Please work to end homelessness: Urge everyone to have their Animals spayed or neutered, adopt if you can, but by all means write for Animals! Write a Blog, an article, an editorial, or if you are able, write a book! Imagine: Your book might be awarded “Impact4Animals Book” status on Five Bone Bookshop!
RuffWriter, Proprietor
Five Bone Bookshop
