The Soul of All Living Creatures

The Soul of All Living Creatures: What Animals Can Teach Us About Being Human Hardcover – July 9, 2013

Author: Visit Amazon's Vint Virga D.V.M. Page | Language: English | ISBN: 0307718867 | Format: PDF, EPUB

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The Soul of All Living Creatures: What Animals Can Teach Us About Being Human – July 9, 2013
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• Hardcover: 240 pages
• Publisher: Crown; 1 edition (July 9, 2013)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0307718867
• ISBN-13: 978-0307718860
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.7 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #129,707 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

A specialist in (animal) behavioral medicine, the author intertwines observations of some of his patients with his thoughts on mindfulness and traits humans and animals share. Each chapter addresses one of the characteristics, ranging from sensitivity to forgiveness. The author posits that humans can learn how to embody those qualities by listening and studying the animals around them.

Although this book covers a lot of ground, the author's philosophical musings failed to move. I was hoping for the level of emotion the author evoked in the introduction, with the story of Pongo, a young dog struck by a car. The animal literally seemed to revive and recover due to the power of love. It spoke volumes about the author, a vet willing to give more than medical treatment and to a dog, whose spirit was drawn by the warmth of human contact. I was touched by the sadness of the depressed and stressed leopards but most of the stories were mundane and not especially memorable. Still there are hints of brilliance when the author grapples with shocking violence of predation and the brutality of slaughterhouses and animal experimentation. But it sinks into bittersweet melancholy.

I am not sure I agree with his zen observations and it is really time to retire some of the old stories , ie 3 blind men and the elephant, the last strawberry before you die, etc. At one point the author suggests that due to the many different breeds of dog, animals are no longer able to communicate as a pack. An evening watching Cesar Milan would certainly dispute that. Some of his conclusions are contradictory and confusing. At one point he states that dogs do not feel guilty but respond expressively to their owners cues.

Amazingly enough, this book did not make me cry. I expected heartbreaking stories, which I don't enjoy but which seem to come with the territory when reading about animals. There were stories, and there were some which are sad, some which really made me feel for the animals involved, but not break into ugly sobs.

Subtitled "What Animals Can Teach Us About Being Human," this book does that but it also teaches us more about animals, how close they are in emotions to humans, how they react to different situations, how their lives are more complex than the casual observer would ever guess.

One of the passages I could most relate to:

"When I watch others eat, I find it curious how absently most people cut at their steak, tear off a chicken wing, or gnaw at a bone, without a thought about their prey, the abattoir, the life that passed. I don't believe it's done with intention. It's just that meat is removed from its source - a fragment of another being."

Don't let me lead you into thinking this is a book about vegetarianism. It is not. But there are so many observations that I felt when I became a vegetarian that I could really connect to the book and the author.

The author is a consultant to zoos, and this leads to a quandary. Do we really have the right to keeps animals in cages, no matter how glorified, in order to protect the species as a whole? The author seems to think so. I'm not so convinced. One of the saddest stories in the book, the one that almost made me cry, was about a snow leopard so out of her element that her spirit had left her body. No one, animal or human, should have to live like that. And then there was the lonely whale.

The allegories in the book were not as appealing to me.

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