Rare Breed of Love: The True Story of Baby and the Mission She Inspired to Help Dogs Everywhere
Author: Jana Kohl
A tale of hope, courage, and the amazing journey of one special dog.
When you meet Baby, the first thing you notice is her limp. She only has three legs, you see -- she lost one following years of mistreatment at a puppy mill. But spend a little more time with Baby and her irrepressible "Ma," Jana Kohl, and you'll hear the story of how this gentle creature has gone from puppy-mill victim to celebrity "spokesdog" -- hobnobbing with celebrities, lobbying politicians, and inspiring an entire movement to end the kind of animal abuse she suffered for so many years.
Several years ago, Jana decided she wanted to buy a toy poodle. But the nightmarish conditions she was confronted with at a breeder's farm -- hundreds of dogs confined to small, dirty cages for their entire lives until they were killed for the crime of being too old to produce puppies -- opened her eyes to abuses in the world of commercial breeding. There are thousands of puppy mills all across the United States, and most of those cute little puppies in pet store windows are products of such nightmarish places. Jana knew this was a wrong she couldn't ignore.
Her first step was to adopt a rescued adult dog instead of buying a puppy from a commercial breeder. And that's how she found Baby, a roughly nine-year-old poodle who had been locked in a cage. But Jana's mission didn't stop there. Soon, Jana and Baby (whose sweet face and three-legged hobble attract attention wherever she goes) found themselves speaking to groups about the terrible conditions at many breeders' farms and urging politicians to change the lax laws that regulate this industry. Today, Baby is the unofficial spokesdog for the Humane Society ofthe United States on the topic of puppy mills, and she and Jana travel around the country lobbying for reform on this important issue.
A Rare Breed of Love contains more than sixty photographs of Baby with many of her high-profile fans, from Barack Obama to Judge Judy to Patti LaBelle, as well as original essays from luminaries such as Alice Walker and Gloria Steinem about the special love we all have for the pets in our lives. In this heartbreaking, compelling, and ultimately heartwarming book, Jana Kohl and Baby offer practical advice on what each of us can do to raise awareness, make a difference, and stop animal suffering everywhere.
Publishers Weekly
It's hard to think of anything cuter than a pet store puppy or anything more horrifying than the places from which most originate. Thanks to Kohl and her rescued poodle, Baby, the movement to eradicate puppy mills now has a face—plus three legs and a wagging tail. Kohl exposes an industry profiting off of "legalized abuse," where dogs are forcibly bred each heat cycle and sequestered in cages so small that some never learn to walk. Leavening the grim accounts are original essays from contributors such as Gloria Steinem and Alice Walker and advice on how ordinary citizens can help by boycotting pet stores and Internet suppliers in favor of adopting animals from shelters and reputable breeders. Pictures of Baby with her famous fans and advocates—Barack Obama, Steven Tyler, Bill Maher, the New York Mets—provide the book with some lighter moments. While the passages "written" by Baby are slightly cloying, Kohl's accounts of how dogs suffer at the hands of puppy mill breeders (Baby's vocal cords were slashed to keep her from barking) will doubtlessly rally new crusaders to this cause. (June 3)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.An Inconvenient Book: Real Solutions to the World's Biggest Problems
Author: Glenn Beck
FUNNY.
OUTRAGEOUS.
TRUE.
Have you ever wondered why some of the biggest problems we face, from illegal immigration to global warming to poverty, never seem to get fixed? The reason is simple: the solutions just aren't very convenient. Fortunately, radio and television host Glenn Beck doesn't care much about convenience; he cares about common sense.
Take the issue of poverty, for example. Over the last forty years, America's ten poorest cities all had one simple thing in common, but self-serving politicians will never tell you what that is (or explain how easy it would be to change): Glenn Beck will (see chapter 20).
Global warming is another issue that's ripe with lies and distortion. How many times have you heard that carbon dioxide is responsible for huge natural disasters that have killed millions of people? The truth is, it's actually the other way around: as CO2 has increased, deaths from extreme weather have decreased. Bet you'll never see that in an Al Gore slide show.
An Inconvenient Book contains hundreds of these same "why have I never heard that before?" types of facts that will leave you wondering how political correctness, special interests, and outright stupidity have gotten us so far away from the commonsense solutions this country was built on.
As the host of a nationally syndicated radio show, The Glenn Beck Program, and a prime-time television show on CNN Headline News, Glenn Beck combines a refreshing level of honesty with a biting sense of humor and a lot of research to find solutions that will open your eyes while entertaining you along the way.
Publishers Weekly
In this appraisal of America's woes, conservative TV and talk-radio host Beck (The Real America) lays lighthearted siege to everything that makes the world worse. "[P]olitical correctness is the biggest threat this nation faces today," he declares, as it makes us prey for Islamic fundamentalists, renders taboo the roots of our economic troubles (poor people are, in fact, lazy, he argues) and creates rampant distortion in the media. Beck goes paragraph for paragraph with global-warming alarmist Al Gore, merrily slaughtering the sacred cows of the environmentalist crowd. Not sated by the hide of the former vice president, he goes after everything and everyone from poverty to "perverts," offering solutions to these and other problems (e.g., "the key to success in the capitalist system is to believe in it"). While often informative, as in his chapter on global warming, Beck is sometimes tedious, particularly when dealing with Islam and education ("France is literally teetering on the edge, and our biggest ally, England, is about to be turned inside out as well"). He's at his best when most absurd, and funniest when he's his own target (the father of four is "little more than a flesh-and-bone jungle gym"). This should make a good read for conservatives. (Nov.)
Copyright 2007 Reed Business Information
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