Books About Animals

I am an unabashed animal lover. I love everything about them. I love learning about them. I love looking at them. I love having them in my life.

I have recently been engrossed in two great books about animals. Each of these books was enjoyable and made me “feel all the feels” as they say. The funny part is each of these books took a very different approach to animals. One book focused primarily on the heart, as in how our emotional bond with animals impacts us and the animals we live with. The other book takes a much more scientific approach and examines studies and research into how any why humans relate the way they do with animals. For me this was like striking it rich in a gold mine. These books each satisfied a different part of my personality.

Tell Me Where It Hurts by Dr. Nick Trout is a book about humans and animals through a day in a life of a veterinarian at his work. A story like this could potentially go many different ways. It could be very clinical describing procedures etc., but this was a very different book. Dr. Trout went into the details not of how to perform each procedure but the details of how the emotions of people and dogs are tied in knots and end up as patients in his veterinary office.

I love my dogs and try to involve them in every part of my life and like many people who might be classified as crazy dog lovers I have had my fair share of visits to the veterinarian. It was easy to relate to the antics and empathize with all of the figures in this book; the veterinarians, the people bringing in their pets, and the pets themselves especially. The book was sad at times, but also had good outcomes as well. More than anything, I think it was the perfect book for most animal lovers as it is always reassuring to hear stores of other people struggling with the same difficult decisions we make regularly. Hearing other people having similar experiences helps us feel like maybe we are not crazy after all.

Some we Love, Some We Hate, Some We Eat by Hal Herzog in case you couldn’t tell by the title is a completely different kind of book. It talks about some of the same issues as in Tell Me Where It Hurts but from a very different perspective. Some We Love, Some We Hate, Some We Eat looks at our relationships with animals very scientifically. Studies are examined and research analyzed to try to understand why we as humans relate to animals the way we do the things we do. This book is very satisfying to my analytical brain. The part of me that wants to understand myself and humans in general (I earned multiple degrees in psychology trying to do that.) and the part of me that wants to be able to better understand animals particularly my dog companions. I want to understand why I think and feel the way I do about animals. I want to understand why I used to be ok with eating meat and now I am not. (I haven’t eaten meat in over a year.)

These books were working in synergy for me each encouraging me to go deeper into the other realm and learn more and explore more about my own thoughts and emotions. The emotional side of being a pet owner is so difficult to put into words, but Dr. Trout did it very well, so if you are looking for some relatable material to help you think about your own emotions with your animals read his book. When reading that book on thing becomes very clear, all the things we do for our dogs and cats and other pets are NOT crazy they are what being a human is all about. When you read Hal Herzog’s book, if you are like me and can’t get enough reading on animal cognition, you will likely recognize at least some of the research and studies he cites but they might be helping to understand things from a different perspective. Then there is plenty of other research and discussion on the book about how we humans think and feel and behave towards animals. Some of it is surprising some of it not so much. But it will inspire a lot of thinking and wondering about why different animals inspire different people to act in different ways.

I don’t know if there will ever be a clear explanation for the extraordinary range of emotions and behaviors that humans display towards animals but I do know I want to learn as much about us as possible and these two books were great for that.