"Designed to provide brief information on the history, care, uses, and breeding of Louisiana Catahoula leopard dogs"--P. vii.

Descended from ancient European hounds and used for hunting, herding, and even as a stalker of feral swamp pigs, the history of the Catahoula Leopard Dog has a history that sheds light on the interdependent relationship Louisiana has with its natural environment. Today these energetic and loyal Catahoula is are beloved, serving as the official state dog of Louisiana. This full-color, illustrated reference guide by Walter LeBon synthesizes geography, history, and anthropology to provide a delightful and informative discussion of this singular breed.?

For a book about a dog as colourful as his name implies, The Louisiana Catahoula Leopard Dog delights the reader with a rich combination of fact and myth. The book traces the history of this little known, but fascinating breed. Find out how this unusual breed was developed and see for yourself, in the many photographs, how beautiful and unique he is. In addition to this unique history, the Catahoula is much loved by those familiar with the breed and the book demonstrates why. As a breed, he is extremely versatile, being used for herding, tracking, guarding, companionship and many other duties. The book also details important information for would-be owners, such as traits, uses, purchasing, care and maintenance, health concerns, breeding and genetics, and the standard for showing.

A comprehensive, humane, and bemused tour of the dog-human relationship, Dog's Best Friend combines anecdote, research, and reportage to illuminate our complex rapport with our cherished canine companions. Tracking our national obsession with an animal that now outnumbers children in American households, Mark Derr chronicles the evolution of "the culture of the dog" from the prehistoric domestication of tamed wolves to the modern horrors of overbreeding and inbreeding. Passionate about his subject and intent on sharing his zeal, Derr defends dogs with wit and flare, producing here a quirky, informative, and fitting tribute to our love affair with canines big and small.

Hailed as "toweringly important" (Baltimore Sun), "a work of scrupulous and significant reportage" (E. L. Doctorow), and "an unforgettable historical drama" (Chicago Sun-Times), Big Trouble brings to life the astonishing case that ultimately engaged President Theodore Roosevelt, Supreme Court justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, and the politics and passions of an entire nation at century's turn. After Idaho's former governor is blown up by a bomb at his garden gate at Christmastime 1905, America's most celebrated detective, Pinkerton James McParland, takes over the investigation. His daringly executed plan to kidnap the radical union leader "Big Bill" Haywood from Colorado to stand trial in Idaho sets the stage for a memorable courtroom confrontation between the flamboyant prosecutor, progressive senator William Borah, and the young defender of the dispossessed, Clarence Darrow. Big Trouble captures the tumultuous first decade of the twentieth century, when capital and labor, particularly in the raw, acquisitive West, were pitted against each other in something close to class war. Lukas paints a vivid portrait of a time and place in which actress Ethel Barrymore, baseball phenom Walter Johnson, and editor William Allen White jostled with railroad magnate E. H. Harriman, socialist Eugene V. Debs, gunslinger Charlie Siringo, and Operative 21, the intrepid Pinkerton agent who infiltrated Darrow's defense team. This is a grand narrative of the United States as it charged, full of hope and trepidation, into the twentieth century.

Often the best advice comes from personal experience, so who better to offer counsel on dogs than their owners? Dog Park Wisdom shares a grassroots approach to pet care, from Fido's introduction to a new baby, to the best way to remove dog stains from car upholstery, to the ultimate shoe-chewing prevention tactic. Presented in the context of everyday life, hundreds of dog owners, dog park visitors, and folks from the ''new dog economy'' share hands-on wisdom and tips about the often confusing and contradictory world of dog ownership. Personal stories of advice givers and their dogs are woven throughout. Meet the dog-loving software engineer who gave up a stressful career at Microsoft to become a dog walker, and the international development worker who discovered a cure for her dog's hotspots in Uganda, which in turn helped fuel a small business project for women and girls there.

INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER An incredible, revolutionary true story and surprisingly simple guide to teaching your dog to talk from speech-language pathologist Christina Hunger, who has taught her dog, Stella, to communicate using simple paw-sized buttons associated with different words. When speech-language pathologist Christina Hunger first came home with her puppy, Stella, it didn’t take long for her to start drawing connections between her job and her new pet. During the day, she worked with toddlers with significant delays in language development and used Augmentative and Alternative Communication (AAC) devices to help them communicate. At night, she wondered: If dogs can understand words we say to them, shouldn’t they be able to say words to us? Can dogs use AAC to communicate with humans? Christina decided to put her theory to the test with Stella and started using a paw-sized button programmed with her voice to say the word “outside” when clicked, whenever she took Stella out of the house. A few years later, Stella now has a bank of more than thirty word buttons, and uses them daily either individually or together to create near-complete sentences. How Stella Learned to Talk is part memoir and part how-to guide. It chronicles the journey Christina and Stella have taken together, from the day they met, to the day Stella “spoke” her first word, and the other breakthroughs they’ve had since. It also reveals the techniques Christina used to teach Stella, broken down into simple stages and actionable steps any dog owner can use to start communicating with their pets. Filled with conversations that Stella and Christina have had, as well as the attention to developmental detail that only a speech-language pathologist could know, How Stella Learned to Talk will be the indispensable dog book for the new decade.