THESE are two rather different books about our relationship with the animals with whom we share our homes and lives. They do, however, contain common themes showing the importance of companion animals who become part of the family and provide us humans with love, loyalty, and healing.
Dog Leads to God contains 52 short lessons about dogs. Each lesson will strike a chord with those who enjoy or have enjoyed canine friendship. The reader is told why dogs behave in the way that they do, and we are reminded that dogs have animal instincts and a highly developed sense of smell, and, while they can be territorial and defensive, they are sometimes better than their human guardians when it come to such things as diversity and forgiveness.
Each lesson contains a story about a dog or dogs and what we can learn from them. We are encouraged by the author, a spiritual director and retired prison chaplain, to reflect on what this can teach us about God. Each lesson concludes with “Something to chew as your dog walks alongside you”; so each lesson ends in contemplation. This is an ideal book to give to any dog-lover, with its bite-sized lessons and clever illustrations.
Pets and Their People is written by an Oxford academic who is also a barrister and a veterinary surgeon and who has written extensively on subjects such as medical ethics, theology, evolution, law, and natural history. This book, like his others, pursues his questioning of who are we as human beings by examining the history and practice of keeping pets. This is a serious academic work that is both very readable and fascinating, and will appeal to people who have pets as well as those who don’t.
The book looks at the history of animal ownership, the place of pets in our homes, and the part that they play in childhood and adolescence, in health and leisure, and in society, advertising, politics, and war. It also examines the place of animals in religion and rites of passage.
The author recognises that our relationship with all kinds of animals reveals a great deal about us as humans, where animals and humans can work and hunt together, share our homes as companions and comforters, or (alas) be bred to look cute and be treated as a fashion accessory.
The author writes that the relationship between animals and humans is deeply mysterious, and poses the moral questions what a human is, and how we should live and behave well. The animals that we love and often mourn help us in that quest. The book is beautifully illustrated, including a tombstone of a much loved companion bearing the sad inscription: “Rex, 14 years of pleasure and fun ended by a hit and run”.
The Rt Revd Dominic Walker OGS, a former Bishop of Monmouth, is President of the Anglican Society for the Welfare of Animals.
Dog Leads to God: 52 divine lessons from your canine
Henry Martin
DLT £14.99
(978-1-915412-83-6)
Church Times Bookshop £13.49
Pets and Their People
Charles Foster
Bodleian Library Publishing £25
(978-1-85124-646-5)
Church Times Bookshop £22.50