The New Work of Dogs: Tending to Life, Love, and Family
by Jon Katz
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Book Summary Information
Author: Jon KatzEdition: Hardcover
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2003-05-06
ISBN: 0375508147
Number of pages: 256
Publisher: Villard
Product features:
- amazing read!
Book Reviews of The New Work of Dogs: Tending to Life, Love, and Family
Book Review: Not just pulling sleds any more
Summary: 5 Stars
Not many dogs pull sleds these days, and only a few fight crime. But that doesn't mean dogs aren't working. Not according to Jon Katz, whose latest book, The New Work of Dogs, explores the less documented duties canines have assumed within family life.
Katz's previous book, A Dog Year, was a popular personal account of the 12 months he spent with two crazy border collies and a pair of laid-back labs, animals that had a transformative effect on his life. Now, with his new book he takes a look at other people's pets, compiling the stories of men and women who have hit a wall in their lives and found comfort in the family canine.
According to Katz, the new work of the American dog is to be companion, counselor, nurse, even surrogate child. One of his subjects, Sandra Robinson, is divorced, miserable and thwarted in her dreams of having children. She fills the void with a new puppy, Ellie. Rob Cochran feels walled in by the demands of his family and his high-paying job. Through his dog, Cherokee, Cochran vicariously experiences the simple, uninhibited life that eludes him personally.
These are lofty roles for our furry friends, but, as Katz shows, they're up to the task. His list of working dogs is as varied as his register of the people who need them. One chapter tells of the Divorced Dogs Club, a group of divorced women who get together and embellish their list of ways that dogs are better than men.
Perhaps the most moving story he tells is of Donna Dwight, a cheerful, dynamic woman dying of cancer whose Welsh Corgi, Harry, accompanies her almost to the gates of death, providing love and companionship all the way. His true work is to save her from feeling alone in the most dreadful hours of her life. And he never flinches, as would so many humans, in the face of cancer's ugliness. "He might not have wanted to push sheep around, but he was ready to work with Donna," writes Katz. As his touching new book proves, a good dog's work is never done.
Summary of The New Work of Dogs: Tending to Life, Love, and Family
?Sometimes human-dog relationships are simple, unrelated to the emotional lives and histories of either species. But often people acquire and love dogs with little awareness that they might have complex and revealing reasons for choosing the dog or pet they choose, loving it the way they do.?Writing about his own dogs in A Dog Year, Jon Katz became immersed in a larger community of dog lovers and came to realize that in an increasingly fragmented and disconnected society, dogs are often treated not as pets, but as family members and human surrogates.
The New Work of Dogs profiles a dozen such relationships in a New Jersey town, like the story of Harry, a Welsh corgi who provides sustaining emotional strength for a woman battling terminal breast cancer; Cherokee, companion of a man who has few human friends and doesn?t know how to talk to his own family; the Divorced Dogs Club, whose funny, acerbic, and sometimes angry women turn to their dogs to help them rebuild their lives; and Betty Jean, the frantic founder of a tiny rescue group that has saved five hundred dogs from abuse or abandonment in recent years.
Drawn from hundreds of interviews and conversations with dog owners and lovers, breeders, veterinarians, rescuers, trainers, behaviorists, and psychiatrists, The New Work of Dogs combines compelling personal narratives with a penetrating look at human/animal attachment, and questions whether this relationship shift is an entirely positive phenomenon for both species. Katz offers us a portrait of a community, and by extension a country, that is turning to its pets for emotional support and stability?a difficult job that more and more dogs are expected to do every day. The New Work of Dogs is a provocative and moving exploration of the evolving role dogs play in a changing and uncertain world.
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