Why are animals better at doing some things than we are? How can some animals change colour, when we can't? How can they hear sounds we can't hear, or predict a storm long before we can? If you want to know the answer to these and many other questions, just ask an animal! Animals use different skills to perform these extraordinary feats, so for each question, there are answers from several creatures, each of which has developed its own special skills. On each page there is a box explaining how humans try to emulate these animal super-skills, with varying degrees of success!

Ask Your Animal provides a clear, hands-on guide to relating with animals and nature using intuitive communication. Its step-by-step instructions, true stories, and practice exercises are designed to inspire and guide the beginner. More advanced techniques help you resolve specific issues with the animals in your life — or in your neighborhood. Using this approach, you can start addressing these common situations right away: controlling bad habits like barking and digging • recovering lost animals • calming an animal with separation anxiety coping with an animal’s death • achieving a better bond with your animal • restoring trust in an abused animal creating harmony among the animals in your home • trailering a reluctant horse • eliminating aggressive behavior assisting sick and injured animals • connecting with rescue animals and animals in crisis

“You are about to enter a new genre, that of scientific fables, by which I don’t mean science fiction, or false stories about science, but, on the contrary, true ways of understanding how difficult it is to figure out what animals are up to.” —Bruno Latour, form the Foreword Is it all right to urinate in front of animals? What does it mean when a monkey throws its feces at you? Do apes really know how to ape? Do animals form same-sex relations? Are they the new celebrities of the twenty-first century? This book poses twenty-six such questions that stretch our preconceived ideas about what animals do, what they think about, and what they want. In a delightful abecedarium of twenty-six chapters, Vinciane Despret argues that behaviors we identify as separating humans from animals do not actually properly belong to humans. She does so by exploring incredible and often funny adventures about animals and their involvements with researchers, farmers, zookeepers, handlers, and other human beings. Do animals have a sense of humor? In reading these stories it is evident that they do seem to take perverse pleasure in creating scenarios that unsettle even the greatest of experts, who in turn devise newer and riskier hypotheses that invariably lead them to conclude that animals are not nearly as dumb as previously thought. These deftly translated accounts oblige us, along the way, to engage in both ethology and philosophy. Combining serious scholarship with humor that will resonate with anyone, this book—with a foreword by noted French philosopher, anthropologist, and sociologist of science Bruno Latour—is a must not only for specialists but also for general readers, including dog owners, who will never look at their canine companions the same way again.

From the time Dr. Mark Goldstein was a little boy—even before he had his first dog—he was fascinated by creatures both domestic and wild. After graduating veterinary school at Cornell University, he became a veterinarian in clinical practice, then director of zoos in Boston and Los Angeles, then head of a progressive humane society where he advocated for animal welfare. During his extraordinary 30-year career, Dr. Mark has accrued a lifetime of experiences working with all sorts of animals and the people who care for them. Dr. Mark's life with animals taught him more than how to be a great doctor, it taught him how to live life. The stories in this book reflect those lessons; they will make you laugh and cry as they entertain and amaze you. Each real-life experience sheds light on the challenges and hard work of the talented individuals who work in the world of animal welfare. These are stories that illustrate the tremendous impact animals have on our daily lives—they are hallmarks of the sacred importance of the human-animal bond. On your journey through the exhilarating life of Dr. Mark, you'll meet some of the finned, furred, and feathered animals who offered him invaluable insights—Harold the hamster, Sasha the Siberian tiger, St. Francis the German Shepherd, Ralph the buffalo, Gus the stallion, Frank the goldfish, and many more fascinating creatures!

How much do animals matter--morally? Can we keep considering them as second class beings, to be used merely for our benefit? Or, should we offer them some form of moral egalitarianism? Inserting itself into the passionate debate over animal rights, this fascinating, provocative work by renowned scholar Paola Cavalieri advances a radical proposal: that we extend basic human rights to the nonhuman animals we currently treat as "things." Cavalieri first goes back in time, tracing the roots of the debate from the 1970s, then explores not only the ethical but also the scientific viewpoints, examining the debate's precedents in mainstream Western philosophy. She considers the main proposals of reform that recently have been advanced within the framework of today's prevailing ethical perspectives. Are these proposals satisfying? Cavalieri says no, claiming that it is necessary to go beyond the traditional opposition between utilitarianism and Kantianism and focus on the question of fundamental moral protection. In the case of human beings, such protection is granted within the widely shared moral doctrine of universal human rights' theory. Cavalieri argues that if we examine closely this theory, we will discover that its very logic extends to nonhuman animals as beings who are owed basic moral and legal rights and that, as a result, human rights are not human after all.

In this book, young readers will find out all the things they've ever wanted to know about animas. And they'll hear it from the animals themselves!

The animal-rights organization PETA asked “Are Animals the New Slaves?” in a controversial 2005 fundraising campaign; that same year, after the Humane Society rescued pets in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina while black residents were neglected, some declared that white America cares more about pets than black people. These are but two recent examples of a centuries-long history in which black life has been pitted against animal life. Does comparing human and animal suffering trivialize black pain, or might the intersections of racialization and animalization shed light on interlinked forms of oppression? In Afro-Dog, Bénédicte Boisseron investigates the relationship between race and the animal in the history and culture of the Americas and the black Atlantic, exposing a hegemonic system that compulsively links and opposes blackness and animality to measure the value of life. She analyzes the association between black civil disobedience and canine repression, a history that spans the era of slavery through the use of police dogs against protesters during the civil rights movement of the 1960s to today in places like Ferguson, Missouri. She also traces the lineage of blackness and the animal in Caribbean literature and struggles over minorities’ right to pet ownership alongside nuanced readings of Derrida and other French theorists. Drawing on recent debates on black lives and animal welfare, Afro-Dog reframes the fast-growing interest in human–animal relationships by positioning blackness as a focus of animal inquiry, opening new possibilities for animal studies and black studies to think side by side.

In this groundbreaking book, animal communicator Marta Williams brings into focus an unexamined dynamic in our relationships with our animals: the idea that our animals are often our mirrors. Deeply and inextricably connected to us on the physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual levels, they can pick up and reflect back to us the issues and events of our lives. Through stories, exercises, and an extensive questionnaire, you will gain unique insight into the healing and teaching roles of your companion animals, both past and current, and the profound gifts they offer.

Unleash powerful teaching and the science of learning in your classroom Powerful Teaching: Unleash the Science of Learning empowers educators to harness rigorous research on how students learn and unleash it in their classrooms. In this book, cognitive scientist Pooja K. Agarwal, Ph.D., and veteran K–12 teacher Patrice M. Bain, Ed.S., decipher cognitive science research and illustrate ways to successfully apply the science of learning in classrooms settings. This practical resource is filled with evidence-based strategies that are easily implemented in less than a minute—without additional prepping, grading, or funding! Research demonstrates that these powerful strategies raise student achievement by a letter grade or more; boost learning for diverse students, grade levels, and subject areas; and enhance students’ higher order learning and transfer of knowledge beyond the classroom. Drawing on a fifteen-year scientist-teacher collaboration, more than 100 years of research on learning, and rich experiences from educators in K–12 and higher education, the authors present highly accessible step-by-step guidance on how to transform teaching with four essential strategies: Retrieval practice, spacing, interleaving, and feedback-driven metacognition. With Powerful Teaching, you will: Develop a deep understanding of powerful teaching strategies based on the science of learning Gain insight from real-world examples of how evidence-based strategies are being implemented in a variety of academic settings Think critically about your current teaching practices from a research-based perspective Develop tools to share the science of learning with students and parents, ensuring success inside and outside the classroom Powerful Teaching: Unleash the Science of Learning is an indispensable resource for educators who want to take their instruction to the next level. Equipped with scientific knowledge and evidence-based tools, turn your teaching into powerful teaching and unleash student learning in your classroom.

New York Times Bestseller! A delightful and quirky compendium of the Animal Kingdom’s more unfortunate truths, with over 150 hand-drawn illustrations. Ever wonder what a mayfly thinks of its one-day lifespan? (They’re curious what a sunset is.) Or how a jellyfish feels about not having a heart? (Sorry, but they’re not sorry.) This melancholy menagerie pairs the more unsavory facts of animal life with their hilarious thoughts and reactions. Sneakily informative, and wildly witty, SAD ANIMAL FACTS will have you crying with laughter.