A Small Furry Prayer: Dog Rescue and the Meaning of Life

I requested this book assuming it would be a short, heartwarming story about animals which I always enjoy and am not particular about the specific details, similiar to those who avidly read romance after romance for the temporary thrill, not the plot. What I got was similar to taking a college course that was lifechanging, perhaps philosophy, and feeling like I learned and understood more about lhumans and their companions than I ever realized I could. This is not an easy read and once assimulated, it is evident that every moment engaged in ithe reading of it was pure gold. Kudos to everyone involved in it's publication! Get yourself a copy today and evolve and then share and discuss with others. ( )

Loved it. Far more interested than I expected. What did I expect? A memoir about dogs and dog rescue. I am a sucker for such things. I expected funny and heart-warming/heart-breaking. Got all that. What I wasn't expecting were such well-written essays on animal/human relationships, mysticism, biology, philosophy and ethics. Kotler is a fine journalist and knows how to do his research, as well as how to write a classic personal essay which begins with the personal and expands to the universal.

One of my few quibbles was his references to Carlos Castaneda, whom I consider to be a charlatan at best (see http://www.salon.com/2007/04/12/castaneda/ ). Having Kotler quote him made me question some of the other events/quotes contained in the book. I'm also not quite sure I bought into a lot of the 'flow experience' he describes. But never mind, the stories of his less mystical (although no less poignant) experiences with dogs, and his work on dog/human psychology was fascinating. ( )

The sub-title wasn’t fooling. Kotler and his wife are deeply involved in dog rescue. I was prepared to hear about the difficulties of moving to the country & a new lifestyle, of the struggles of finding homes for the dogs, of dogs being sick and of dogs dying, but I wasn’t looking for metaphysical speculation and “deep ecology”. It's a great glimpse at what people who live for dogs think about, but I wanted more dog stuff, even it was gritty, and less theory. ( )

A Small Furry Prayer is the memoir of a man running a dog rescue in New Mexico. He tells of his moving with his wife from California to New Mexico to start the shelter, and then intersperses tales of the shelter with musings about the nature of dogs and their relationship with humans. The book is heavy on philosophical meanderings and has a strangely downbeat tone throughout.
Running a dog rescue is tough business, emotionally, and all but suicidal financially. Those who take on such a project are to be congratulated; a sentiment the author seems to agree with since I found the book rather narcistically self-congratulatory in large parts. In other parts the author reviews research about dogs and discusses such things as how the dog-human bond evolved. In the lead in to his discussion about homo-sexuality in the dog world he states that same-sex humping between dogs is thought to be almost exclusively the function of dominance . He disagrees with this and discusses gayness amongst his dogs. I do believe homosexuality occurs amongst animals, and the discussion of how and why homosexuality would be conserved within a genetic population when it would seem to be maladaptive is truly fascinating. However the discussion is undercut by my knowledge that the author's reading of the research is dead wrong, and that mounting behavior amongst dogs in NOT thought to be exclusively due to dominance, nor is it likely due to homosexuality. This sort of superficial understanding of research into dogs weakens the flights of philisophical fancy the author goes on. The botom line is that animals bring joy to the world and to our lives, books about them should do the same. ( )

Overall, I enjoyed A Small Furry Prayer immensely - it wasn't what I was expecting. It is a lot less memoir-y than I thought it would be. Kotler focuses a lot on his research about dogs - information that is fascinating, especially for dog owners. That said, there was not really a narrative arc or traditional storyline with a beginning, middle, and end. The book starts out quite narrative - we read about Steven and Joy's experiences starting a dog sanctuary, the dogs they help, and the challenges they face. Kotler flashes back to his early days with his original dog, Ahab, and how loving Ahab set him down his dog-saving life path. The narratives more or less stop after a particularly tough period of time in which Joy and Steven lose seven dogs in seven weeks, including their favorites. After that, the book turns much more philosophical and scientific and the anecdotes that Kotler shares serve to illustrate his deeper points.

A Small Furry Prayer doesn't have a conclusive ending, it really could have gone on as long as Kotler still had insights and anecdotes to share, and I get the feeling that he nowhere near exhausted his reserve in this book. I would have liked a more definitive structure and order - it felt too scattershot.

Kotler addresses sticky issues like the value of animal rescue as a cause (i.e. why save animals when so many people are suffering?), the "humanity" of animals, and the interconnectedness of all life. Still, the information is interesting and well-cited, the stories emotional, and the cause noble. A Small Furry Prayer is a must-read for dog lovers and animal rescuers, but be prepared for deep thinking and deep emotions. ( )