Reading and Media Resources: Animals as Companions

The day to day story of a typical animal shelter, based in compelling stories of desperate animals, thoughtless people, devoted yet emotionally exhausted workers and volunteers, and some very happy...

An examination of the meaning of Paris to those who lived there in the nineteenth century teased out from mainstream petkeeping culture, drawing on dog-care books, bulletins of the Society for the...

A firsthand account of a social psychologist’s somewhat accidental introduction to the world of cat rescue, the trap-neuter-return method of feral cat management and the often hidden world of feral...

A collection of New Yorker writer Susan Orlean’s essays on animals, including backyard chickens, show dogs, pet tigers, mules, homing pigeons, animals in film, Free Willy, and more.

Primarily a professional resource for those who work in shelters, this book examines and evaluates current research regarding animal and human behaviors associated with the intake, management and...

Portrait of America’s relationship with cats, dogs, birds, fishes, rodents, and other companion animals, drawing on natural history, the changing role of pets in family life, new standards of animal...

Examines the dramatic variance in the narratives assigned different animals in a high-intake animal shelter and how those narratives dictate their chances for survival. Argues that these inequalities...

Documentary about exotic animals kept as pets, including information about the inadequacy of legal regimes governing this practice and the dangers presented. 

An attempt to describe the world as perceived by dogs by a cognitive scientist, based upon an evaluation of dogs’ actual perceptual and cognitive abilities and how they differ and contrast with our...

Account of an unremembered event that took place in England in the days following the outbreak of WWII, in which 400,000 pet dogs and cats were killed by their owners despite official discouragement...