Running with Sherman: A Donkey with the Heart of a Hero

 Running with Sherman: The Donkey with the Heart of a Hero by Christopher McDougall  352 pages

Fans of James Herriott’s “All Creatures Great and Small” series will love this tale of courage and strength.

When writer and jogger Christopher McDougall learned that one of his neighbors in rural Pennsylvania was a animal hoarder and needed money, he didn’t hesitate to purchase a donkey. He was, however, unprepared for the abuse the little gray donkey had suffered. “Its fur was crusted with dung, turning his white belly black. In places the fur had been torn away, revealing raw skin almost certainly infested with parasites. He was barrel-shaped and bloated from poor feed and his mouth was a mess, with one tooth so rotten it fell right out when touched. Worst of all was his hooves, so monstrously overgrown they looked like witch’s claws.”

Hooves this bad are usually a death sentence for a donkey. But the McDougall family could tell beneath that battered body was an intelligent creature that seemed to want to live. They named him Sherman, after the songwriting Sherman brothers from the movie, “Saving Mr. Banks.”

Another neighbor, Tanya, pitched in to help the McDougall’s turn Sherman around. The most important thing, she told the family of four,  he needed once he was clean, well-fed and learned to walk after his hooves were fixed, was a purpose. Donkeys need a reason to live…they need a job to do. Christopher decided that Sherman’s “job” would be to run with him as he trained for marathons.

This book covers one year in the life of Sherman and the McDougall’s. It’s the story of how he became best friends with a goat named Lawrence and trained, along with his other new friends Flower and Matilda, for entering the burro racing competition help every year in Colorado. As McDougall takes readers on his adventure, it’s laugh out loud funny and heartrendingly sad. Fortunately, the laughter outweighs with sad.  Readers get an inside peek at the nature and mind of a donkey…how they can be led and be a leader..and of course how stubborn they can be. After reading this wonderful story, I would love to have a donkey, but I think it may be too smart for me. “Running with Sherman: The Donkey with the Heart of a Hero” receives 6 out of 5 stars in Julie’s world.

Alex & Me

Alex & Me: How a Scientist and a Parrot Uncovered a Hidden World of Animal Intelligence-and Formed a Deep Bond in the Process by Irene Pepperberg         Hardback Book:  240 pages     

Excellent story about Alex, an African Grey parrot who learned to think, conceptualize, categorize and draw his own conclusions to his environment from his work with his scientist colleague, Irene Pepperberg.    Irene could never quite accept that Alex could draw his own conclusions though over their 30 years of working in various labs around the country together he demonstrated it many times.    Maintaining a clearly clinical relationship for their 30 years  but at Alex's death it occurred to Irene that she loved him and he was her friend.    She couldn't get past the concept of a parrot's brain being the size of a walnut but if only she had realized the phenomenal amount of information that was stored in that exceptional brain she might have had a more enjoyable relationship with him as communicating with a different but certainly intelligent species.   I would have liked to see the book go further and had she pursued conversation instead of variations of concepts (colors, numbers, shapes) she might have found out there was way more to Alex than she had imagined.   I enjoyed the book, just wish she could have lighteend up and let her guard down a little.   Alex was so smart like when she was trying to get him to do those tired old exercises again and again to show would be donors his "skills"  and Alex kept asking her for a nut but she blew him off each time.     Finally he said to her, "NNNNNNuuuuuhhhhhhhhttttttttttt!" (Like, hello are you ignoring me or too dense to get what I'm saying?)  He got it.   She placed him in the "just a bird" category but he had so much more to offer if she would have just allowed him to.   Too much emphasis on superior species and lesser species when we are all just different species and should accept each other accordingly.   Good as far as it went.   I liked Alex a lot.   Irene, not as much.  Yes, I would recommend it as a beginning point for anyone interested in multi-species communication then go to books on KoKo the gorilla and more give and take experiments.   Truly a one dimensional study, but, she does give tidbits about her life along the way.  Yes, I would recommend it as a first read before going into more in-depth and equal respect studies

  - Shirley J.

Elephants on the Edge:What Animals Teach Us About Humanity

 Elephants on the Edge:What Animals Teach Us About Humanity  by G.A. Bradshaw                 Hardback Book:  352 pages                                      

This has been a very hard to read.    The sheer horror, mistreatment  and murder of elephants in the wild and in captivity has caused me to have to put the book down countless times just to get away from the awfulness of what man does to these poor creatures.     It is a well written book.   It is assuredly a well researched and documented book.   It is a great eye-opener to atrocities carried out against our fellow species, the elephant.    Through many examples it is shown and proven that these great creatures have a highly developed society within their own culture, they have strong moral principles among their own kind, and when living in the wild do not pose a threat to man - the scientific studies showing the relationships between humans and elephants ad put forth to the South African government are included but flagrant disregard for any creature unable to speak for themselves allows them no legal representation other than the too few animal rights groups willing to stand up in their defense.   But the greed and cruelty shown when we are given a closer look at what is really occurring is damning.   Culls are legalized murder of these at risk and endangered creatures.     Culls - the brutal rounding up of elephants to kill them in massacres that are the stuff of nightmares and of which is traumatizing any elephant that is lucky enough to escape the cull but who may go on to live in the shrinking wild - man is moving in and corporations are claiming the land so that like the Native Americans these noble beasts are being killed in the thousands and more each year so that governments and private enterprise can claim the land they lived on and use it for their own financial pursuits.   Its all about the money.    Animals have no rights.   Even the so-called institutions that claim to be doing the elephants a service by keeping them in Zoos, Circuses, etc. use such archaic medieval type tools to bend them to their will against the elephants own sense of self to do tricks to please crowds that are behaviors far against their normal behavior - it will make a compassionate person fall to their knees with tears in their eyes and regret in their hearts that mankind has sunk so low as to use such unconscionable tactics to bend a creature to one's will and break their spirit so completely that the poor animals exist in a limbo of pain, suffering and loss of their elephantness to be paraded for man's glory and belittling.    I shed a lot of tears reading these horrible accounts of what humans are getting away with doing even within the borders of our own country to captive elephants.   Even the reserves here in the United States who offer some comfort and some freedom for these majestic fellow creatures have a hard time reassurring these dear creatures that they are free of their captors and jailers at last.    Some of the elephants given the chance to live out the rest of their lives away from chains and being brutalized by maniac zookeepers/handlers/trainers who rip their flesh and do ungodly things with the legalized tools, clamps, and worse they are still legally allowed to use on the elephants, some of the creatures who have endured lives filled with nothing but brutality never come back from that.     Their spirits completely broken they are so traumatized they are like a military person coming back with PTDS from a war zone.     In the culls baby elephants see their entire families killed before their eyes and some never get over that terror at what they were forced to watch so that the babies can be captured and sold.    It is beyond reason the transgressions humans enact upon those they feel the need to dominate and how like the slaves of former times these unfortunates, too, are mistreated, misused and forced to do the bidding of those who have power over them.     Sometimes several 'keepers' will brutalize a female elephant so much that often they die from their inhumane torturers.   Nearly all captive elephants are females as they are smaller and more easily managed when dishing out punishment disguised as training.    Elephants are sentient beings, they perceive, reason, think and they suffer and cain feel pain yet they are treated with unbridled hatred by those who praise themselves for their compassion in "caring" for them.     Laws need to be changed to stop the brutality going on under the auspices of the world courts and with the blessing of zoological societies.   More people need to come forward on the behalf of these poor fellow creatures on this planet because to date regardless of the death and treatment they are forced to endure no one gets prosecuted for their intolerable treatment and living conditions.   They all hide behind terminology allowing them to use force and pain to regulate their behavior.    May God protect them - Man sure isn't.     Good book, harsh realities laid out so not for the squimish, but, everyone from children on up should be enlightened as to what is really going on behind all of those elephants balancing on top of balls.    The movie, "Dumbo," only touched the surface.    Learn and stop the wrongs people.     

 - Shirley J

Mama’s Last Hug: Animal Emotions and What They Tell Us About Ourselves

Mama’s Last Hug: Animal Emotions and What They Tell Us About Ourselves by Frans De Waal        Audio Book:  10 hrs., 38 mins      Paperback Book:  336 pages            

Primatologist, Frans De Waal, begins his story talking about Mama a 59 year old Chimpanzee, who was the Matriarch of her chimp colony.   When Mama was dying, a biologist named Jan van Hooff, who had formed a deep bond with her, entered her night cage to say goodbye.  This was unprecedented.    Chimpanzee’s have uncanny strength and can be dangerous but van Hooff, loved her so, and knowing her end was near, wanted to say goodbye.    A video was made of the meeting.     Mama, though, weak and frail, was so happy to see him, her mouth fell open in surprise and delight and she reached for him to pat him on the neck and rub his head lovingly.    She embraced him with a big smile she was so happy to see him.   Mama’s story is told in snippets throughout the book, her intervening in disputes, her laughter, her reactions when shame-faced wrong doers within the colony came to her for forgiveness, etc.      Other examples are also given of other species, who have the ability to demonstrate that they too feel as we humans do and experience many emotions, love, hate, anger, sorrow, guilt and shame, disgust, fear, joy and empathy.    De Waal has studied animals, primarily primates for over 40 years and has come to the conclusion, unlike many of his naysayer colleagues, that animals do exhibit expressions and behavior that is congruent with what humans define as emotion.   He notes the empathy pets show when their human caregiver is sad.   He talks about how in elephant herds “Auntie” elephants will help care for youngsters even helping the mother to save them when they fall, are stuck in water or mud they cannot get out of,  etc.    Excellent book.    Check out the video of Mama an Jan van Hooff,  it will bring tears to your eyes, it is so dear.   Mama was so happy to see her old friend before her passing, two days later.   Bless her.   I highly recommend this book to everyone from Middleschool up.

 - Shirley J

Really Important Stuff My Cat Has Taught Me

Really Important Stuff My Cat Has Taught Me  by Cynthia L. Copeland            Paperback Book:  176 pages               

I loved this book.   The photos alone are priceless.    Such great advice, too.   From “Be the Exception” to “Stay a Little Wild,”  “Stay a Little Weird”  “Talk Less, Listen More” to “Act Like You Can See Things the Others Can’t Just For Fun.”    As Ernest Hemingway said, “One cat leads to another.”  He ought to know, he had more than 30 cats at his home in Key West, Florida.    He said he admired cats for their absolute emotioional honesty.   While people may hide their feelings a cat, he declared, does not.    Another famous writer, Mark Twain. Shared his farm in central Connecticut with 11 cats.  Twain said, “I simply can’t resist a cat, particularly a purring one.”     He also said, “If man could be crossed with the cat it would improve man, but, it would deteriorate the cat.”    Scientists have found that when cats sleep deeply their brain patterns mimic humans in sleep.    No wonder one of my cats talks in his sleep.  Cats can also sleep for up to 16 hours a day.   I know days when I feel like I could do that.   Lots of good information here.    A fun read that will often make you laugh out loud – some of the pictures will too.    As Edward Gorey said,  “Books.  Cats.  Life is good.”    I thoroughly agree.   Good book.  I highly recommend it to cat lovers and animal lovers and everyone in between.