Straying -- Biting -- Suffering -- Thinking -- Defecating.

Animal Satire presents a cultural history of animal satire, a critically neglected but persistent presence in the history of cultural production, in which animals expose human folly while the strategies of satire expose the folly of human-animal relations. Highlighting the teeming animal presences across the history of satirical expression from Aristophanes to Twitter, with chapters on key works of literature, drama, film, and a plethora of satirical media, Animal Satire reveals the rich rhetorical significance of animality in powering the politics of satire from ancient and medieval through modern and contemporary times. More pressingly, the book makes the case for the significance of satire for understanding the real-world implications of rhetoric about animals in ongoing struggles for justice. By gathering both critical and creative examples from representative media forms, historical periods, and continents, this volume aims to enrich scholarship on the history of satire as well as empower creative practitioners with ideas about its practical applications today.

Oh, no! Someone has stolen the Mona Woofa from the Dogopolis Museum of Art and the police don't even realize that they are barking up the wrong tree when they collar their number one suspect. So it's up to Art Dog, the mysterious, masked painter who roams the streets of Dogopolis, to find the missing masterpiece. Zip! Splash! Smoosh! He paints himself a Brushmobile, and he's off––on a wild and funny chase to capture the dastardly crooks. With the same deft touches of high-spirited fun and adventure that have made Mystery on the Docks and Mama Don't Allow (both Reading Rainbow Featured Selections) such perennially popular stories, Thacher Hurd serves up a new action-packed tale that will delight young readers. 1996 ‘Pick of the Lists' (ABA) Children's Choices for 1997 (IRA/CBC) 1998 Red Clover Book Award (VT)

In almost 40 per cent of households in North America, dogs are kept as companion animals. Dogs may be man's best friends, but what are humans to dogs? If these animals' loyalty and unconditional love have won our hearts, why do we so often view closely related wild canids, such as foxes, wolves, and coyotes, as pests, predatory killers, and demons? Re-examining the complexity and contradictions of human attitudes towards these animals, Dog's Best Friend? looks at how our relationships with canids have shaped and also been transformed by different political and economic contexts. Journeying from ancient Greek and Roman societies to Japan's Edo period to eighteenth-century England, essays explore how dogs are welcomed as family, consumed in Asian food markets, and used in Western laboratories. Contributors provide glimpses of the lives of street dogs and humans in Bali, India, Taiwan, and Turkey and illuminate historical and current interactions in Western societies. The book delves into the fantasies and fears that play out in stereotypes of coyotes and wolves, while also acknowledging that events such as the Wolf Howl in Canada's Algonquin Park indicate the emergence of new popular perspectives on canids. Questioning where canids belong, how they should be treated, and what rights they should have, Dog's Best Friend? reconsiders the concept of justice and whether it can be extended beyond the limit of the human species.

How do British pavements remain free of dog mess? Why are paths not littered with cigarette butts or roads not lined with abandoned cars? What does the decline of the public lavatory say about us and is the national reputation for queuing still deserved today? Orderly Britain takes a topical look at modern society, examining how it is governed and how it organises itself. It considers the rules of daily life, where they come from and why they exist. It asks whether citizens are generally compliant and uncomplaining or rebellious and defiant. This quirky social history takes a close look at shifting customs and practices, people's expectations of each other and how rule-makers seek to shape everyone's lives - even when ignoring some of those rules themselves. Taking the reader on a journey that covers a range of topics - dog mess, smoking, drinking, parking, queuing, toilets - Orderly Britain examines the rapidly changing patterns of everyday life, from post-war to present day, and concludes with an extended look at the unparalleled shifts in social routines that resulted from the global COVID-19 pandemic. Asking whether it is the proliferation of rules and regulations in the UK or something else that keeps people in line, authors Tim Newburn and Andrew Ward offer a unique insight into what creates orderly Britons.

We know that there were dogs in Victorian Britain, but who were the ‘Doggy People’ who kept them, bred them, showed them, worked with them and cared for them? Chapter by chapter, this book reveals the varied and often eccentric lives of the Victorians who helped define dogs as we know them today. The cast runs from the very pinnacle of society, Queen Victoria, to near the bottom with Jemmy Shaw, a publican, boxer, promoter of dog-fights and rat-killing. The others include an artist, aristocrats, authors, a clergyman, doctors, a dog-dealer, a feminist, journalists, landowners, millionaires, philanthropists, politicians, scientists, a stockbroker, veterinarians, and a showman – none other their Charles Cruft. Looking at the invention and meaning of new breeds such as poodles, collies, Jack Russells, and borzois amongst others, we see how the Victorians thought about pets, sports, dog shows and animal rights.

“An informative, well-written book on the evolution of all canids, including the wild types (wolves, coyotes, jackals, and dingoes)…Recommended.”—Choice Of the world’s dogs, fewer than two hundred million are pets, living with humans who provide food, shelter, squeaky toys, and fashionable sweaters. But roaming the planet are four times as many dogs who are their own masters—neighborhood dogs, dump dogs, mountain dogs. They are dogs, not companions, and these dogs, like pigeons or squirrels, are highly adapted scavengers who have evolved to fit particular niches in the vicinity of humans. This book present an eye-opening analysis of the evolution and adaptations of these unleashed dogs and what they can reveal about the species as a whole. Exploring the natural history of these animals, canine behavior experts Raymond and Lorna Coppingers explain how the village dogs of Vietnam, India, Africa, and Mexico are strikingly similar. These feral dogs, argue the Coppingers, are in fact the truly archetypal dogs, nearly uniform in size and shape and incredibly self-sufficient. Drawing on nearly five decades of research, they show how dogs actually domesticated themselves in order to become such efficient scavengers of human refuse. The Coppingers also examine the behavioral characteristics that enable dogs to live successfully and to reproduce, unconstrained by humans, in environments that we ordinarily do not think of as dog friendly. A fascinating exploration of what it actually means, genetically and behaviorally, to be a dog, What Is a Dog? is likely to change the way beagle or bulldog owners reflect on their four-legged friends.

“A thoughtful book” about how to ensure that the animals we love benefit from the relationship as much as we do (Kirkus Reviews). We feel love for our companions, and happiness that we’re providing them with a safe, healthy life. But sometimes we also feel guilt. When we see our cats gazing wistfully out the window, or watch a goldfish swim lazy circles in a bowl, we can’t help but wonder: Are we doing the right thing, keeping these independent beings locked up, subject to our control? Is keeping pets actually good for the pets themselves? That’s the question that animates Jessica Pierce’s powerful Run, Spot, Run. A bioethicist and a lover of pets herself (including, over the years, dogs, cats, fish, rats, hermit crabs, and more), Pierce explores the ambiguous ethics at the heart of this relationship, and through a mix of personal stories, philosophical reflections, and scientifically informed analyses of animal behavior and natural history, she puts pet-keeping to the test. Is it ethical to keep pets at all? Are some species more suited to the relationship than others? Are there species one should never attempt to own? And are there ways that we can improve our pets’ lives, so that we can be confident that we are giving them as much as they give us? “With gentle humor, clear compelling language, and always in search of the physically and emotionally healthiest lives possible for our animal companions, Run, Spot, Run moved me all the more because it’s written from the inside looking out. Pierce herself lives with three pets and understands the deep urge so many of us feel to connect across species lines.”—Barbara King, author of How Animals Grieve

The story of the thoroughly Victorian origins of dog breeds. For centuries, different types of dogs were bred around the world for work, sport, or companionship. But it was not until Victorian times that breeders started to produce discrete, differentiated, standardized breeds. In The Invention of the Modern Dog, Michael Worboys, Julie-Marie Strange, and Neil Pemberton explore when, where, why, and how Victorians invented the modern way of ordering and breeding dogs. Though talk of "breed" was common before this period in the context of livestock, the modern idea of a dog breed defined in terms of shape, size, coat, and color arose during the Victorian period in response to a burgeoning competitive dog show culture. The authors explain how breeders, exhibitors, and showmen borrowed ideas of inheritance and pure blood, as well as breeding practices of livestock, horse, poultry and other fancy breeders, and applied them to a species that was long thought about solely in terms of work and companionship. The new dog breeds embodied and reflected key aspects of Victorian culture, and they quickly spread across the world, as some of Britain’s top dogs were taken on stud tours or exported in a growing international trade. Connecting the emergence and development of certain dog breeds to both scientific understandings of race and blood as well as Britain’s posture in a global empire, The Invention of the Modern Dog demonstrates that studying dog breeding cultures allows historians to better understand the complex social relationships of late-nineteenth-century Britain.