Humans and Their Animals

All writers in this collection speak for themselves—and themselves alone.


Writer Rachel Maizes recounts life with Chance, her often aggressive, mixed breed dog.

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Emily Yoffe, Slate's "Dear Prudie" and a reformed beagle owner, explains why these headstrong little monsters might not be the best choice for a first-time dog owner.

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Lena Dunham, creator and star of the HBO series Girls, chronicles the dogs that she has pursued.

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Kiri Blakeley, a contributor to Forbes magazine, defines the modern cat lady by exploring the connection women (and some men) have with cats.

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Naturalist Sy Montgomery gets in the mind of an octopus and is amazed not only at what she finds but also at the existing research on these intelligent creatures.

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Author Laurel Braitman explains that zoo veterinarians often treat problem animal behavior with the same drugs used in human mental health care.

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Timothy Braun, a writer and teacher, describes how his life changed after rescuing Dusty, a shelter dog on death row.

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Author David Grimm explains how one natural disaster changed the status of American pets and the way we care for them.

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Candy Crowley, a CNN reporter and devoted dog person, explains how two cats changed her opinion of felines.

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Match.com and PetFinder.org want to help people find their perfect companion. Susan Hogan, a writer and teacher, describes her experiences using these two websites.

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Stephanie Butnik, writing for the New York Times, tries to dispel the myth that cat people are crazy by defining the "new" cat owner.

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Jon Mooallem, a writer for the New York Times, investigates the "designer" dog fad which has created Labradoodles and puggles.

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Farhad Manjoo, a technology columnist, argues that people deserve some dog-free zones.

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Writer Writer Roz Warren recounts the family's decision to have expensive gall bladder surgery on a beloved 13-year-old dog.

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Writing for the New Yorker, Patricia Marx explains how someone can take a pet anywhere because most people don't understand the difference between an "emotional support animal," which is a pet, and a bona-fide service animal, which is a highly-trained professional with a distinct skill set.

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What can an animal do if its owner neglects and/or abuses it? Charles Siebert, contributing writer to the New York Times Sunday Magazine, addresses that question as animal rights continue to evolve.

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Writer Elain Wherry compares the styles of bosses with the behaviors of common canines.

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When is it okay to put down a zoo animal? European and US zoos want their animals to have different experiences, which means that healthy animals sometimes die at the zookeeper's hands. Writing for Mother Nature Network, Laura Moss explains the differences in zoo philosophies.

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Lauren Slater of National Geographic details the problems that exotic pets have caused their owners.

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Transcendentalist Henry David Thoreau describes the animals that he encounters during his two-year-long experiment of living a simple life in nature.

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The staff of the AV Club list twenty-one examples of filmed entertainment (from the early twentieth century to the present) in which animals accidentally or intentionally came to harm.

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