I love the social history books that take one subject and follow it through history. Dog Days of History: the Incredible Story of Our Best Friends, by Sarah Albee might be for younger readers, but I enjoyed it ... and ... it sent me looking for other books! Learn about the human/dog relationship from ancient times, through the middle ages, to present day. There are hunting dogs, war dogs, service dogs and therapy dogs. There are dogs from the movies, advertisements and TV, too. I also liked that the author included some of the not so good things, too.

Although Working Like a Dog: the Story of Working Dogs Through History, by Gena K. Gorrell was also written for younger readers, it is a good read for an adult, too. I especially liked the chapter on service dogs ... there are so many variations on this from guiding the blind to sniffing out bombs or cancer cells ... simply amazing. As with the Albee book, there's the good and the bad here, too. We did not always treat dogs well, so be warned, so often it is hard to read about this.

Just how many different things can dogs sniff out? Find out in Sniffer Dogs: How Dogs (and Their Noses) Save the World, by Nancy F. Castaldo. Again, this is a book for younger readers but there's a lot of information here. Dogs have been trained to find people, bombs, drugs, various fruits (or other foods), and cadavers. They also can sniff out cancer cells, and old bones (which differ from cadavers). And, of course, truffles! Better than pigs, it seems, because a truffle pig will eat the truffles and the dog won't!

And now, something about favorite dogs of mine: sled dogs! Check back to my post of March 4, 2017 for the book Jon Van Zyle's Iditarod Memories: 40th Anniversary Edition of Official Race Art. It is an absolutely wonderful book! Recently Kiwi surprised me with a copy of the book ... and what a lovely gift! So, what this means, you see, is that I now have my very own copy to put on the shelf since I knew as soon as I read it last year it needed to go to someone else. I spent a happy evening rereading and looking at the pictures. :-)

Reading Hermit With Dog