Showing posts with label Dogs as pets. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Dogs as pets. Show all posts

11/12/2009

Review of Sit! Ancestral Dog Portraits (Paperback)

A magnificent display of heroes, scoundrels, statesmen and moguls from times past. Utterly hilarious and even credible, it draws you back again and again for another look. Where is the next edition!!

Product Description
Originally published in 1993, SIT! was named a Notable Book of the Year by The New York Times and was excerpted in Harper's Magazine and The New York Times Book Review. George Booth, writing in the NYTBR, called it "the best of humor....Delightful!" while Cosmopolitan pronounced it "irresistible."

Renamed REMEBRANCE OF DOGS PAST, this fetching collection of 70 disarmingly funny portraits is as fresh and funny as ever. Beginning with an 18th- or 19th-century ancestral portrait, Thierry Poncelet seamlessly paints in a dog's head over the original human subject's. The resulting tour de force is a fantasy that looks uncannily real, the dogs appearing all too human in their military regalia or elaborate gowns. And for a glorious twist, New Yorker humorist Bruce McCall names each dog and offers a brilliant tongue-in-cheek biographical sketch. Thus there's Lord Gristle (black Labrador), proprietor of a vast tabloid chain, with dark memories of rolled-up newspapers; Marie-Claire DuBossy (white poodle), who shocked France's poetry circles by refusing to beg; and Percival Horace Denbeigh (Jack Russell terrier), Britain's foremost military correspondent, with an infallible nose for news.

It's a howl.

About the Author
Thierry Poncelet is a Belgian-born artist and paintings conservator whose dog portraits have earned him international acclaim. His work is exhibited in Paris, London New York, Vienna, and Brussels

Bruce McCall (born 1935) is a Canadian author and illustrator, best known for his frequent contributions to The New Yorker.

Born and raised in Simcoe, Ontario, Canada, he was fascinated by comic books and showed an early aptitude for drawing fantastical flying machines, blimps, bulbous-nosed muscle cars and futuristic dioramas.


In his memoir, Thin Ice (1997), McCall admitted that he was never good at physical activity as a boy, but could count on his mother to encourage his creativity. Bruce's father T.C. was imperious and unemotional, and left his alcoholic wife Peg without the attention she needed. Peg and the children tried to strike an attachment to him, but his stormy moods frequently pushed them aside.


Without any serious technical training, McCall began his illustration career drawing cars for Ford Motor Company in Toronto in the 1950s. After several decades in advertising, he sought opportunities elsewhere in the publishing industry.

He went to New York City, and was hired by National Lampoon and made a name for himself as an artist with intelligent and whimsical humor. McCall also spent a brief period writing sketches for Saturday Night Live.


McCall has illustrated magazine covers, regularly appearing in The New Yorker and other magazines. He has been a contributor to the magazine since 1979.


McCall is also a humourist, and has written essays on some of the social ironies of modern life. He writes frequently for the "Shouts & Murmurs" section of The New Yorker.


McCall lives on the Upper West Side of New York near Central Park.



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11/05/2009

Review of Bringing Light To Shadow: A Dog Trainer's Diary (Paperback)

Bringing Light to Shadow:A Dog Trainer's Diary is the story of Shadow, and his transformation from a seriously human-aggressive dog into a Canine Good Citizen.Pam brought Shadow home without fully understanding the extent of the problems he harbored, or the lengths to which she would need to go to fix this broken boy.Through tedious observations, conveyed to the reader in diary format, we learn both what worked for Shadow and aided in his rehab, and what failed.Yes, this dog trainer actually tells us about her failures and Shadow's regressions!By sharing such information with her readers, she provides valuable lessons not often available in the pages of a training manual.Additionally, this book contains a few very useful features.When the author introduces new concepts, they are highlighted in a concept box, so that the reader may fully understand the passage.Similar technique is used for hindsights (remember, this book is a diary that Pam kept as life with Shadow was unfolding before her).It is tempting to the animal lover in some of us to fantasize of turning an aggressive dog into a happy family pet.If this describes you, this book will wake you up from your daydream, yet at the same time will help you understand that it is possible for an aggressive dog to become a good citizen.Before you think of saving the animal at the shelter that nobody wants, read this book.If you find yourself living with an aggressive dog, read this book.If you want to be inspired by the very very difficult work of others, or by one black and white dog's resiliency and willingness to trust again, read this book!



Click Here to see more reviews about: Bringing Light To Shadow: A Dog Trainer's Diary (Paperback)