2 comments about My Hamster and Me (For the Love of Animals Series).

1. This book is fantastic for reviewing hamster care!! The book is entertaining because it has games, activites, and toy checklists icluded in the book for the owner to check off. There are also many adorable pictures hamsters. I have been taking care of hamsters for seven years now, and this book is still helpful. It's great for kids and adults, and hamster experts too!



2. This is a nice book for the child hamster owner, perhaps for reading even before the pet is purchased. It does not contain all the details that a hamster owner might need, but it covers basic behavior and how to treat the pet. Cute photos, too!

2 comments about The Private Life of the Rabbit: An Account of the Life History and Social Behavior of the Wild Rabbit.

1. I was told this book was good, if perhaps a bit "unscientific." After reading it I would firmly state this book is neither good nor scientific. I found so many errors in the first twenty pages that I almost put the book down in disgust-- ranging from significant typos resulting in gross misidentification of animals, to blatant contradictions. For example, in one section, Lockley describes the joy of observing a dominant male mount a female in his warren and copulate with her, but then in the next paragraph maintains that this male only ever was seen to copulate with his mate (a different female rabbit). When the person writing this can't even keep the rabbits straight, how are we supposed to even take his observations as fact?
   
   All anality aside, the pathos of the book is off, to me. This guy starts off with an introduction about how much he loved rabbits growing up, and wanted to breed Angoras. Then he describes in great detail, in the introduction, buying an island and trying every method known to man of eradicating the existing rabbits, including gassing the warrens and even introducing myxomatosis! But of course, this man loves rabbits, right?
   
   It makes me wince to see the incredibly stressful situations he set up "for science" (including isolating a dominant male from his home base and then, after another male took over, introducing him back in to be harried by his former subjects). You could argue that these are "wild" rabbits and that he had to observe nature taking its course-- however, I'm of the belief that once a scientist fiddles with a situation he/she has a responsibility to at least be humane to his/her subjects, wild or not. But I suppose his proceedings were the norm in that day and age, and I suppose someone had to be the first(?) to discover that if you uncover a breeding stop of kittens too soon, the mother will bury them alive and leave them to die. Or that when a piece of fenced land is overcrowded, the juveniles will have no place underground to sleep and spend most of the day futilely and desperately digging around the outer fences.
   
   Another thing that bothers me, but was probably related to the ethological discipline at the time, is that the author tends to write like Tolkien. It would seem he cared far more about letting you know that the marigolds were particularly fine that year, and that he had had a ham sandwich that morning which was on the heavy side but otherwise quite delicious, than actually imparting any observations on the rabbits. And oh god, how he would switch back and forth between different colonies as if author and reader shared the same brain! Good luck keeping up with the distracted mind of Lockley!
   
   All said, several of his "experiments" did the job to some degree, and yielded some interesting results. His artificial burrow set up in one case was a fantastic first glance at life underground, which had been inaccessible to earlier scientists sitting around with a pair of binoculars wondering what was going on unseen. And I admit that at the time it must have been a refreshing re-glance at the social behavior of the wild rabbit. His account of the beginnings of the myxomatosis epidemic in Europe was also quite fascinating and revealing, although who knows how accurate it is.
   
   Since I'm a ravenous fan of Watership Down by Richard Adams, I suppose society will have to stay forever in Lockley's debt for being the kernel of inspiration for a great speculative animal-based epic. If you know nothing about rabbits, this book may entertain you while expanding your knowledge base. Just be prepared to cry.



2. Richard Adams never would of wrote "Watership Down" had it not been for R. M. Lockley's "The Private Life of the Rabbit." This is the first time someone has truly studied rabbit behavior. As far as discoveries go, Lockely is to rabbits as Jane Goodall is to the chimpanzees of Gombe.

   Lockley explains migrations of yearlings, chin glands, chewing pellets, re-absorption of embryos and other points of Lapine life. Though written in 1964 this is a good edition to add to any rabbit library. This book is the roots of our understanding of wild and domestic rabbit behavior.

No comments about When Your Rabbit Needs Special Care: Traditional and Alternative Healing Methods.

4 comments about Training Your Pet Rabbit (Training Your Pet Series).

1. This book is just ok. There are many more things online for free that can help a new rabbit owner. I just got my first rabbit. i researched for months before i adopted mine. This book is good for guide lines but the magazines are much better if you want solid info that you can trust. And the training isnt that helpful!



2. This would be a great book for people who have little knowledge of rabbits. It's not so much about training the rabbit, but getting along with your rabbit and keeping him/her happy and healthy. A great bargain for those new to the wonderful world of rabbits!



3. I got this book from the library before I went out and bought it, and I am happy I did. Our bunny hates being picked up, hates being held, and fears coming near us sometimes (we are his third family). And the book assumes your bunny is tame and loves being held, which most bunnies don't.
   For example, the training directions for a bunny trance does not start with how to get your bunny into your arms and allow you to turn it over, it starts with the bunny already in your lap, upside down. Hey Patricia Bartlett, if I could get my bunny to stay in my lap, let alone have him stay upside-down in my lap, I would not need your book!
   If you have a tame, socialized bunny, you can prob train him on your own, and if your bunny needs taming training, this book will not provide it. I liked this book for the general bunny information, but for training purposes, it didn't help us.



4. The moment I accepted my new job as permanent backup late shift cage-cleaning supervisor at a nearby strip mall, I immediately rushed home and ordered this book. Please allow me to preface my review with a brief childhood anecdote. I don't know exactly what inspired my love of rabbits. Was it the way Mom kept the old bacon grease in the fryer for future reuse? Or was it Dad's eye-opening, thirst-quenching, two martini breakfast and resulting toilet clog (which I inevitably would have to unclog with my bare hands)? I still don't know. Whatever the reason, I have attended my county fair every year since I was a young rabbit enthusiast in the fourth grade. In fact, when I was 15, I won Best in Show with Bother the Rabbit at the 4-H tent. (I firmly believe it was this award, circled and underlined in metallic silver ink on my otherwise boring resume, that landed me the prestigious PetCo job.) This award, comparable to an Oscar, spawned my short-lived business enterprise, "Best Rex Rabbitry," located in my parents' dismal, rodent-infested garage, and gave me my first real taste of small business ownership. It also got me out of our bug-infested house for a few minutes every day. Oh, how I miss the sight of four-inch centipedes crawling over my unread textbooks and Mom's Harlequin romance novels. In her book, "Training Your Pet Rabbit," Patricia Bartlett Pear brings it all back with her endless pontifications about rabbit folklore. She cites myriad examples of their role in magic acts, early pregnancy tests, so-called "good luck pendants," Satanic blood rituals, and 19th century literature. What the author fails to disclose is her obvious pro-life bias--she ends the book with an unprecedented, word-for-word, page-turning reenactment of The Passion of The Christ. After reading this obnoxiously highbrow novel in its original Aramaic language, I had to pour myself a stiff bacon-grease-and-gin on the rocks, unclog the toilet, and get ready for work. That night at work, I bored and alienated all of my new coworkers with paraphrased quotes from this book! Thank you for this book, Mrs. Bartlett!

4 comments about A House Rabbit Primer: Understanding and Caring for Your Companion Rabbit.

1. Provides good overview to basic house rabbit care. A great book for first time bunny owners looking for info.



2. A local non-profit rabbit sanctuary recommended this book to me as a resourse, and it's been a big help.



3. I acquired a rabbit in March of 2001, rescuing him from an uncertain fate in a vacant lot. In September of 2001, he ate the buttons off my remote control. If I had had this book back then, I'd still have buttons on my remote. Yes, the remote control is a favored chew toy of a busy bunny, acording to Ms. Moore. I believe it. He has since bitten the "on/off" button on the remote for my cable, too.
   
   That said, this is an excellent, no-nonsense guide to keeping a rabbit in the house. It describes breeds, feeding, medical considerations and, most importantly (to me, at least), how to "read" a rabbit. If you've never had a rabbit before, you may find them a bit inscrutable compared to a smiley, waggy dog or a purring, kneading cat.
   
   The breed descriptions are interesting. You'd think that it was "big white bunny", "big lop eared bunny", and "tiny bunny". But, there are a lot of breeds, from the Flemish giant, who is the size of a Maine Coon cat, to the Netherland Dwarf, who is the size of an overfed guinea pig. There are a lot of coat desriptions from the Dutch rabbit, which looks like a police car, to the Jersey Wooly, who looks like a tribble from "Star Trek".
   (I consider mine a mini Vacant Lot Lop.)
   
   There's a section on special needs rabbits. This is an interesting facet of rabbit-keeping that I was unaware of when I picked up a stray rabbit in a vacant lot and took him home. Rabbits are fragile and can injure their backs easily. Many knowledgeable rabbit keepers are able to provide an injured or even paralysed rabbit in a comfortable and happy existence. This book outlines care for such delicate creatures.
   
   There are a few black and white photos, but the descriptions are really well done enough that those photos are just there for seasoning.
   
   Another bonus in this book, is that it appears to be in 14 point type, which meant I did not have to wear glasses to read it, but my middle-aged presbyopia is another story.



4. I was pleased to see a new house rabbit book on the market. While I found it slightly less complete than the House Rabbit Handbook by marinell harriman, it still covers most of the basics. It is a bit weak in the following areas:
   The author writes about rabbits through an observation of her own house rabbits and I disagree with a few statements she made in the book.
   Lack of colored pictures or many pictures at all
   facts about nutrition not all 100% accurate.
   Howver, I'd recommend it to one who is new to rabbits or has some experience but wants to learn a bit more. Overall, it is an enjoyable book to read and is the type of book you would probably need to read cover-to cover as opposed to using it as a reference

1 comments about Dwarf Rabbits As a New Pet (As a New Pet Series).

1. As a twelve-year-old first time Dwarf Rabbit owner, I read this book countless times and reveled in the vivid color photography. Almost every color of rabbit imaginable is pictured within these pages, and almost every breed is described in a paragraph of its own. Of course, at only 64 pages, this is hardly the exhaustive guide to owning a dwarf rabbit; it's not the book you want if you're going to get serious about showing and breeding (though there is a chapter on breeding toward the end of the book). The contents also include chapters on "Considerations before Buying," "Selection," "Acclimation," "Feeding, "Care," "Behavior," and "Health," among other topics. Overall, this is the perfect book to guide an amateur bunny keeper of any age who wants the basics (and some nice pictures).

4 comments about The Essential Guinea Pig (The Essential Guides).

1. This book really helped get us prepared for our new lil buddy!!



2. A must read for any current or potential guinea pig owner! We (the TX Rustlers Guinea Pig Rescue) recommend this book to all our new guinea pig adopters.
   It covers most aspects of Guinea Pig care, including caging + diet. This would be a good book for Guinea Pig novices.



3. My niece gave my daughter her guinea pig when she was moving. I have to admit, I was not too happy with the rodent at first. I am more of a dog/cat type of person..but soon this little furry creature stole my heart. I bought this book for her to learn how to take care of the guinea pig. It has EVERYTHING you need to know about them. I have looked at several books like this in book stores, but found this one on-line and took a chance that it had all the info that we needed. It gives a history of the animals, different breeds, and all of the care instructions that you need to have a happy healthy guinea...plus it gives other resources to follow up with, which has been extrememly helpful. If you are a new guinea pig owner, this book is a must have!



4. This Book Gives So much Good information On Guinea Pigs. They Are really fasinating creatures, you not regreat buying this book! I enjoyed reading all the little facts on guinea pigs. This is one of the best books on guinea pigs there is out there!

5 comments about The Essential Rabbit (The Essential Guides).

1. THE ESSENTIAL RABBIT is a relatively recent addition to rabbit care books. It contains all of the basic information about rabbit care and has more of a focus on keeping rabbits indoors which is helpful. The author paid great attention to the organization and layout of the book which makes the book easy to use. While other rabbit books such as WHY DOES MY RABBIT by Anne McBride and THE HOUSE RABBIT HANDBOOK contain more in depth information, this book would be wonderful to use with children. It is well organized and easy to read, so parents and children can use the book together.

   There is one strength of this book over most of the other rabbit care books which may be a major reason why I purchased the book. I am an amateur photographer and this book has some of the best photographs of rabbits. It will give the reader plenty of ideas for photographing pets. I find it is simply a pleasure to rummage through the pages from time to time.




2. This book covers how to take good care of a rabbit, but it doesn't say much about rabbit behaviors or instincts. It doesn't explain circling, spraying, nipping, digging, and other common rabbit behaviors.
   The book primarily describes how to take care of a pet rabbit, and that information is thorough and well written. It is written simply enough for a child age 8+ to understand.



3. I bought this book when I was just geeting started with raising rabbits as pets with 4-H. It is a very good book for anyone who has pet rabbits especaily the younger crowd. This book gives you lots of info and ideas about and for you and your rabbit in a short book. It has alot of topics and pictures. This is a book that would be good in your library when starting out with rabbits.



4. My 1st favorite is The House Rabbit Society Handbook :)
   I bought this book at the same time I bought my 2 baby lop-eared bunnies, Monticello and Jefferson. They are my babies and make me unbelievably happy! I never knew rabbits could be so entertaining, loving, and intelligent! This book was a life saver - I knew nothing about my new pets until I read it. I was especially grateful for the chapter on diseases. By advice of the book, I took my bunnies to the vet for a physical. I found that they had 2 common rabbit diseases that needed antibiotics. My vet called the pet store where I got them to warn them that all their bunnies had this illness - she probably saved 30 bunnies, including my babies - all thanks to the book! I went right home and read all about the illnesses. They are very healthy bunnies today :)



5. As a first time rabbit owner, I found this book very helpful. It contains information on rabbits that you wouldn't even think about asking! This is a great book with a lot of useful information about selecting a rabbit, caring for your rabbit, the different breeds, and even little rabbit facts!

1 comments about The Simple Guide to Ferrets (Simple Guide to...).

1. I happened to see this book at a pet store and bought it on a whim, just to add to my ferret resource library as I had never heard of it. It turned out to be a surprisingly complete and accurate book, a close second to Kim Schilling's "Ferrets For Dummies" in the if-I-can-only-get-one-book-on-how-to-take-care-of-ferrets-
   this-is-the-one-to-get contest. Almost every page has a full color photo of a ferret on it, and they're usually instructional or useful in some way, not simply decorative.
   
   Lots of helpful sidebars, and they've designed the book in a very well-organized way with lots of "Post-It" notes and fake paper clips "holding" memos to the page, making the important points stand out for easy reading.
   
   Highly recommended as a one-stop source for ferret care or to add to your ferret book collection to get a more well-rounded view of the basics of ferret care.

5 comments about Beatrix Potter Collectibles: The Peter Rabbit Story Characters.

1. Especially for those who are passionate about Beatrix Potter. Sewall and Dubay do an excellent job in showcasing items often overlooked in other price guides. This is not to imply this book is simly a price guide. It is much more - a true delight!



2. Charming book documents Beswick, Royal Doulton, Royal Albert, Wedgwood, Crummles, Eden Plush, Giants, Pull Toys, Musical Toys Hand Puppets, Beanie Babies, etc., Schmid Music Boxes, Anri, Border Fine Arts Figurines, Steiff, Tins, R. John Wright, etc. by author Debby DuBay, foreword by Potter expert Judy Taylor, highlighting Kara and John Sewall's private collection. Fabulous colored photographs with complete descriptions and a value under each. This price guide is easy to read and the only one I could find on general B. Potter collectibles. Highly recommend this lovely yet inexpensive book.



3. Collecting is wonderful and documenting a collection is an honor that Ms. Dubay has bestowed on her friends the Sewall's. There are many books on the market that go into Ms. Potter's life like expert Judy Taylor who wrote the foreword for this book! As a novice collector, of many porcelain pieces, this is the first book I could find that has the values and is actually a useful price guide for the diverse Potter collector. I highly recommend.



4. This charming book opens with Debby DuBay chatting away on how she met the Miss Potter and collector of today - Kara Sewall. I love this book and highly recommend it to all collectors, Peter Rabbit and Potter fans. Thanks to Debby DuBay for another charming book; she has a unique way of inviting us into her life and the lives of her friends and then getting us addicted to whatever the subject is that she is documenting. I am now a Limoges and Potter collector.



5. I have collected Beatrix Potter for many years and finally a price guide is available on many of the pieces I have collected. I highly recommend this book to collectors of Beatrix Potter memorabilia from Wedgwood, Crummles, Schmid Music Boxes, etc., from the 1970s to today. LOVE this price guide!