This was a super compelling examination of the paradoxes associated with how we treat animals - as a source of companionship, food, clothes, fun. It reminded me of Malcolm Gladwell: a successful mélange of anecdotal and scientific evidence that made arcane studies in anthropology, zoology, sociology, psychology, and anthrozoology lucid.

Eh. This wasn’t a terribly written book, but the research (if you can even call it that) was really shoddy and lacking real substance. More importantly, the format of this book—a bunch of brief “essays” strung together in a really incohesive way—made it difficult for me to sink my teeth into anything. The author would’ve been much better served to select a few of these stories to really flesh out—giving the reader a “character” or two to invest in—instead of these rather banal fleeting thoughts, opinions, and feelings.

I've reached that point in life where I just cannot force myself to finish crappy books. I used to try to get to the end just to make sure I had a well-rounded review. But this pile of steaming bull dung is something that I refuse to wade through any longer.

Herzog is a psychologist and anthrozoologist who is going to take the reader through some ambiguous territory in regards to animals. Why do we love, hate, and eat some animals (right there in the title!) and moreover, how can you love animals but still eat meat? Why don't you want to do experiments on mice in labs, yet call the exterminator if there is a mouse in your house? The description of this book had me hooked and I grabbed the audio version from the local library.

What you end up with is Herzog trying to walk the middle-of-the-road on all of these debates. Animal experiments are generally frowned upon, but if one were being done to test a cancer drug that could cure cancer, well maybe then a few mice should be sacrificed. We should probably reduce the amount of meat we eat, switch to healthily raised meat, but the truth is the world will likely always eat meat. I'm fine with these middle ground analyses. I think most of his middle analyses are founded in human nature, reflect cultural differences, etc.

So why one star?

Because in certain areas Herzog tries to justify things that he should actually be pretty firm on and condemn. At one point he is discussing the myth that all serial killers started their violence by maiming animals. This is a myth and doesn't fit all serial killers. Rather than continue to say any torture of animals is wrong ... the author (in summary) insists that some torture of animals is normal for different children. Blowing up a bullfrog is natural, a curiosity, exploring one's world, a childhood right of passage .... NO.

He suggests that if we keep spaying/neutering dogs and cats eventually there will be no dogs/cats for us to have as pets. Wait a damn minute. Animals at shelters are dying by the thousands each day -- spaying and neutering is one of the only proven ways to reduce unwanted pet populations. There are many verified, honorable breeders of dogs and cats out there (look up the AKC breeder registry, for example, and you can find plenty of purebred dogs there which are not made in puppy mills). For any rational person to start suggesting we shouldn't spay/neuter.... NO.

The research is shoddy. Citing small studies (and sometimes adapting those studies to fit his goals but I think perhaps he's summarizing them incorrectly, or only pointing to a small study that is actually a quite bigger analysis he's only using part of). By the middle of the book you're getting the feeling that "our relationship with animals is complicated." That's in the title. We all know that. Telling us again and again "it is complicated" isn't anything breathtaking... we all knew that already when we picked up this book looking for more answers, or at least a deeper answer an analysis.

Overall.... a snooze fest surrounded by lunacy in some of its claims.

As Bob Barker would say, please remember to spay and neuter your pets!

Really fascinating book. Our relationships with animals are so paradoxical and culture driven. Not only did I learn a lot (love when sciencey things are framed through a historical lense) but it also made me think. Didn’t really change my perspective on things, if anything I feel almost more comfortable in my contradictory feelings about animals.

a lively and lighthearted interrogation of animal-human ethics

as advertised

plane book

This should have been right you my alley, but frankly I didn't find it all that engaging.

Definitely interesting, though not particularly coherent.

I watched a video one time on Youtube of a soldier in Iraq throwing a puppy off of a cliff for fun. You could hear the puppy's cry get farther away as it plummeted lower and lower. You can probably still find this video if you search "soldier throws puppy off cliff." This video deeply affected me, and I do not really consider myself an "animal lover." I felt very strong hatred toward the men, very intense sadness for the puppy. How could someone do that? And yet...I eat meat.

In fact, I eat meat every day. I love meat. There is nothing quite as satisfying as a still-bloody hunk of cow, seasoned and with a side of loaded mashed potatoes. And I sleep well every night. Not a single toss or turn for the likely thousands of animals that have been outright slaughtered for simply my mealtime pleasure. I am aware of this strange inconsistency. I do nothing to change it. And thus is the moral predicament, the seemingly bizarre relationship humans have with animals of the other species that both Hal Herzog, and now myself, are completely fascinated by.

Hal is an anthrozoologist. He studies, through various and rather crazy research adventures, how humans relate to animals. He's been to cock fights, animals rights marches, the homes of hoarders. This book was so incredibly interesting. I found myself laughing at my own irrationalaties when it comes to my views about animals. Cock fighting, for example. Evil, right? Debased men working through some sort of Freudian penis-envy debacle by putting their literal cocks in a ring and having them duke it out. Well, sort of. But not quite. Cock fighting is an intricate and perhaps not all that inhumane sport when you compare it to the lives of chickens raised for eating. I think anyone who just had some nice Tyson Chicken Snackers did much more of an immoral inservice to animal kind than a single cock fighter. Cocks raised for fighting get very special treatment for two years before theyre put in the ring. They get a very special diet, and loads of sunshine to help bring out their inner Muhammad Ali. Sure, in every race 50% of the contestants wind up thrown into a bin with the other losers. But, at the end of the day, two years of doting and thirty minutes of intense battle leading to death is still far better than the life a normal feeding chicken lives, cooped up in a ridiculous pen with a ridiculous number of other chickens, until within a very short period of time they're man-handled and taken somewhere that mechanically and quickly cuts their heads off and lets their bodies bleed out on an assembly line.

I guess my point is, the book makes you stop and think about why we deem some animal treatment as cruelty and other forms of animal treatment as the "way life is." Why do I love pandas and give a rat's ass about the fate of the Peruvian scorpion? Why are there 3 times as many women in animal rights activism than men? Why, oh why, do I have absolutely no response to the fact that millions of lab mice are euthanized before experimentation every year simply because they are surplus, and yet I had two quite dear pet mice as a child for many years?

It's a conundrum. And a really fascinating one. The book is incredibly well-researched, the voice is tongue-in-cheek, down to earth, and neutral. Hal isn't necessarily trying to convince you one way or the other. This is not the book of an activist. It's the book of a curious scientist, who, also, happens to be both a meat eater and animal lover.