In this heartfelt, thoughtful, and inspiring memoir, New York Times bestselling author Jon Katz tells the story of his beloved rescue donkey, Simon, and the wondrous ways that animals make us wiser and kinder people.In the spring of 2011, Jon Katz received a phone call that would challenge every idea he ever had about mercy and compassion. An animal control officer had found a neglected donkey on a farm in upstate New York, and she hoped that Jon and his w...

From the acclaimed author of A Good Dog, Dog Days, and Going Home comes this eBook original—a poignant memoir that celebrates Jon Katz’s beloved border collie, Rose, and their transformative years together on Bedlam Farm.“I like to say you get the dog you need,” Jon Katz writes, “and I don’t think any human ever needed a dog more than I needed Rose in the fall of 2003.” That year, Katz embarked on a quixotic quest, moving from the suburbs of New J...

In this invaluable guide and touchstone, New York Times bestselling author Jon Katz addresses the difficult but necessary topic of saying goodbye to a beloved pet. Drawing on personal experiences, stories from fellow pet owners, and philosophical reflections, Katz provides support for those in mourning. By allowing ourselves to grieve honestly and openly, he posits, we can in time celebrate the dogs, cats, and other creatures that have so enriched us. Katz compels us to consider i...

Jon Katz, the New York Times bestselling author of The Dogs of Bedlam Farm, takes a bracing look at the booming industry of dog training, which he dubs "a catastrophe in America." Listening to Dogs is not a training book; it is an empowerment book. In it, Katz asks dog owners to stop before reaching for the latest training manual or watching the latest TV show, and to invest that time designing their own personal training programs for their and their dog's individual needs. Why pay for a d...

From New York Times bestselling author Jon Katz comes a wise, uplifting, and poignant memoir of finding love against all odds, and the power of second chances for both people and dogs.“I had no idea that Frieda would enter my life and alter it in the most profound way, but that’s one of the beautiful things about animals. They change you, and you almost never see it coming.”In 2007, a few years after purchasing Bedlam Farm in upstate New York, Jon ...

BONUS: This edition contains an excerpt from Jon Katz's Going Home.Rose is determined and focused, keeping the sheep out of danger and protecting the other creatures on the farm she calls home. But of all those she’s looked after since coming to the farm as a puppy, it is Sam, the farmer, whom she watches most carefully.Awoken one cold midwinter night during lambing season, Rose and Sam struggle into the snowy dark to do their work. The ever observant Rose has seen...

Jon Katz, a respected journalist, author, father, and husband, was turning fifty. His writing career was taking an uneasy turn, his wife had a demanding career of her own, his daughter was preparing to leave home for college, and he had become used to a sedentary lifestyle. "I had settled down," he notes. "Any more settling and I would vanish into the mud like some fat old catfish." In Running to the Moun-tain, Katz finds a way to redefine and lend new meaning to his life. He writes, "I bo...

“Change loves me, defines and stalks me like a laser-guided smart bomb. It comes at me in all forms, suddenly and with enormous impact, from making shifts in work to having and raising a kid to buying a cabin on a distant mountaintop. Sometimes, change comes on four legs.”In his popular and widely praised Running to the Mountain, Jon Katz wrote of the strength and support he found in the massive forms of his two yellow Labrador retrievers, Julius ...

Do animals have souls? Some of our greatest thinkers—Aristotle, Plato, Thomas Aquinas—and countless animal lovers have been obsessed with this question for thousands of years. Now New York Times bestselling author Jon Katz looks for an answer. With his signature wisdom, humor, and clarity, Katz relates the stories of the animals he lives with on Bedlam Farm and finds remarkable kinships at every turn. Whether it is beloved sheepdog Rose’s brilliant and methodical herding ability, Mother th...

BONUS: This edition contains an excerpt from Jon Katz's Going Home.“People who love dogs often talk about a ‘lifetime’ dog. I’d heard the phrase a dozen times before I came to recognize its significance. Lifetime dogs are dogs we love in especially powerful, sometimes inexplicable ways.”–Jon KatzIn this gripping and deeply touching book, bestselling author Jon Katz tells the story of his lifetime dog, Orson: a beautiful border collie–intense, smart, crazy, and unfo...

“I had no idea that Frieda would enter my life and alter it in the most profound way, but that’s one of the beautiful things about animals. They change you, and you almost never see it coming.”When writer Jon Katz met Maria Wulf, a quiet, sensitive artist he felt a connection with her immediately, but a formidable obstacle stood in the way: Maria’s dog, Frieda.A rottweiler-shepherd mix who had been abandoned and living in the wild for several years, Frieda was fero...

No one brings to life the remarkable bond between humans and their dogs like New York Times bestselling author Jon Katz. He has warmed our spirits with enchanting tales and keen observations of his animal menagerie—the dogs, sheep, chickens, and other residents of Bedlam Farm. Now, Katz is back with what he does best in his first collection of short stories, Dancing Dogs.With his signature insight and gift for storytelling, Katz shares sixteen stories about one of...