Adam's Task: Calling Animals by Name
Have you ever watched a horse flick her tail or had a dog greet you at your door and known in your heart that the animal was exhibiting something more than simple instinctual responses? If so, you must read this book.\ In it Vicki Hearne asserts that animals that interact with humans are more intelligent than we assume. In fact, they are capable of developing an understanding of “the good,” a moral code that influences their motives and actions. Hearne’s thorough studies led her to adopt a...
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Have you ever watched a horse flick her tail or had a dog greet you at your door and known in your heart that the animal was exhibiting something more than simple instinctual responses? If so, you must read this book. San Francisco Chronicle As witty, wise and rare a book as has come along in some time.
New Introduction Donald McCaig ixPreface to the 1994 Edition xiiiBy Way of Explanation 3A Walk with Washoe: How Far Can We Go? 18How to say "Fetch!" 42Tracking Dogs, Sensitive Horses and the Traces of Speech 77Crazy Horses 117Horses in Partnership with Time 155Calling Animals by Name 166The Sound of Kindness 172Lo the American (Pit) Bull Terrier 192What It Is about Cats 224Rights, Autism and the Rougher Magics 245Afterword 267Index 269
\ Atlantic MonthlyA fascinating and often surprising discussion of animal-human encounters.\ \ \ \ \ Audubon MagazineThere is no finer book than this one about the way language entwines humans and animals.\ \ \ Boston GlobeA beautiful, wonderful book of the sort that permanently refreshes thought and feeling.\ \ \ \ \ New York TimesWhen Ms. Hearne relates a dog or horse story, the animals become full-fledged characters, as brightly delineated as people created by Dickens or Twain.\ \ \ \ \ San Francisco ChronicleAs witty, wise and rare a book as has come along in some time.\ \ \ \ \ Library JournalThis engrossing treatise on animal behavior and interspecies communication provides an astute and possibly unique synthesis of a domestic animal trainer's practical knowledge and the intellectually more distant and even sterile theories of the academic world. Modern psychologists and philosophers have typically railed dogmatically against the anthropormorphism and morality inherent in the language of animal trainers. But Hearne points out that the validity of the trainers' methodology is supported by the fact that trainers who actually work interestingly and successfully with animals can accomplish so much more than most academic researchers in training their charges. The author believes that the training relationship is a complex and fragile moral understanding between animal and human. Enthusiastically recommended. Robert Paustian, Wilkes Coll. Lib., Wilkes-Barre, Pa.\ \
