Service Animals Books

Many of the references were incorrect. Especially, the chapters on the scientific perspectives of BSE.

While this book is not for everyone, I would recommend it for researchers who want more objective information on the British BSE situation. It was written before a confirmed case of the disease was found in the U.S., but still provides valuable background on the European development of the issue. The two chapters providing a content analysis of both the British and American media's framing of the disease were particularly helpful.

If you want to buy a book about mad cow diseases, check out Deadly Feasts or Mad Cow USA. This book edited by Ratzan is a disappointing hodge podge, disjointed and not interesting.

I returned this book upon reviewing it because I was looking for opportunities and ideas on training my new siezure alert dog. I have trained one before w/o the use of any manuals, but I thought it might show some insight on overcoming roadblocks in relation to the dog training.

This particular book turned out to be something a teacher would use in an elementary school setting to teach about the different kinds of dogs, assistance, balance,mobility, and seeing eye and to teach about tolerance.

I purchased this book impressed by its title, in need of solace for the wound of euthanizing a deeply loved companion/pet. I was stunned by the political nature of the author-editor's opening essay, in effect a judgment of euthanasia (a blanket judgment). I came quickly to feel that the intent of this work--if not of the individual articles culled from a variety of sources--was to preach covertly against euthanasia. At any rate, I could not find a unifying theme to the disparate articles, and certainly the title is misleading. Any reader who wants a book to help with bereavement and grief will instead find very brief, clinical discussions of subjects like the difficulty of being a veterinarian; or how emotionally-troubled children react to pet loss.

Highly clinical, confusing, and often superficial work.

The purpose of this book is to use semantic tricks in order to attempt to justify needless institutionalized violence against non-human animals.

"Reviewer: A reader from Boston
I just want to register my support for this book. I think that animals should be freely killed, eaten, and processed into useful products for humans. We need many more books like this one in our day."

That was a review from another reader. They gave it 5 stars by the way. I hope he finds these useful products to be what they are- unneeded. Meat is full of cholesterol, saturated fat, meat eaters are altogether unhealthier than non-meateaters. It is disgusting, their arrogance towards other living creatures. You have no right to use, exploit, torture or kill another animal for your own benefit.

I rate this book as two stars rather than one because the author has at least made an effort at producing a philosophical justification for his pro-exploitative position, however incoherently this is argued.

The author considers that it is the presence of language that give humans sufficient self awareness to have moral rights, and that all animals lack this awareness. The authors arguments are however incoherent, rambling and very hard to understand even for a reader such as myself with some understanding of philosophy.

The author displays woeful ignorance not only of recent studies into the philosophy of mind, but in modern linguistics - surprising for somebody whose arguments stand or fall on linguistic premises. The presence of language-less human adults (as recounted by Steven Pinker in "the language instinct")counters Leahey's arguments. Such humans presumably can be expoited at will according to Leahey's logic. Yet once these people had been taught language, all had a great deal to say about their experiences as languageless humans, and all showed that they had a high level of self awareness.

His arguments are not only rambling and incoherent, but often contradict themselves. When arguing for the continuation of fox hunting for example, the author uses the argument both that foxes are vermin that should be wiped out, and that hunting helps in the conservation of foxes! He is obviously confused.

If you want a book that will provide a well reasoned argument to continue with exploitative practices regarding animals, then I suggest you look elsewhere. In my opinion the philosophical case for animal liberation has been won. The best arguments against liberation come from Michael Fox and Roger Frey. And it should be noted that even these arguments failed to convince their authors as they later came over to the animal liberation side.

Just by reading the reviews of the people (or maybe the animals) who gave this book one-star, one could tell the emotional vitriol, the name-calling and histrionics that accompany thr so-called "animal rights" movement. The point is that you can't have rational discussions with people who equate the death of six million Jews to the death of six million chickens, which is what these people believe in. And that's the problem -- if you disagree with them, you are "ignorant, "stupid" -- etc. so if you're a thinking person, take these reviews for what they're worth. That's what's so disturbing about this movement -- they use scare tactics, indeed downright terroristic techniques, to get you to "convert" (it's no surprise Hitler was a vegetarian animal-lover!)

This book makes a well-argued, nuanced case and perhaps it's attracting so much hate-mail it's because it is quite good. It's easy to read and makes very good arguments.

Another very poor attempt at specieist literature. Shame on Routledge. If you want a good and honest read, try Peter Singer's 'Animal Liberation'.

I ordered this book directly from Amazon.com. Within 2 months of very light use the binding has failed. I have brought this book to school only 4 times and read just a few chapters out of it - the rest of the time it is on my bookshelf. However, the pages are coming out and because it's been over 30 days Amazon will not refund my order. Textbooks, especially those I bought brand new and for $70, should last more than two months! Other class members who bought this book elsewhere have not had similar problems; use caution when buying this book directly from Amazon.

Since I needed a mouse brain atlas for my work I asked around what others recommend. I went out and bought this product with great expectations. The book is OK, but only shows the coronal sections of the brains. The worst part is the totally useless 4 CD ROM. I am quite familiar with computers and programs but I was not able to use it. Looks like one PhD is not enough to use this very unfriendly program....
If you don't register than you are not able to use the help and other feature. But if you have problem with the registration (as I had) than you are stucked.
The bottom line is: very unfriendly and useless program for the mere 160$. Look elsewhere if you need a brain atlas.

A waste of money. Don't read this for any information on quail habitat.

Sure this book is easy to read but does it cover enough details? This book has no training value what so ever. There was very sparse details about how to run and manage a k9 program. It would have been more informative if she wrote about the financial and administrative issues in running a good program. In the interviews, she did not go very in depth and lacked details. This book missed the target.