Second Best book of the year

Pukka's Promise:
The Quest for Longer-Lived Dogs

When Ted Kerasote writes about dogs, he writes good! I've been trying to read one of his earlier works of travels and adventures, Navigations, and while I'm finding it enjoyable, I'm also finding myself putting it aside and not picking it back up.

Pukka's Promise I devoured in one weekend and immediately started over. It's all about the mystical magic of dogs combined with a lot of hard science. His research takes him deep into questions I never even considered questioning--
Why do dogs need annual vaccinations for diseases that don't mutate, like distemper and parvo?  (answer: they don't)
Since wolves eat no grains, why do dogs thrive on diets consisting primarily of corn or wheat?  (they don't)
Is there a long-term benefit to radical sterilization at an early age? (depends on who you ask)
What is the genetics behind breed-specific diseases and how can you improve your odds of getting a healthy purebred dog? (he tells)
How can you make your dog happier?

I need to re-read the section on dog food and the part where he gets a tour of a plant that produces animal by-product meal. It seems that when done correctly with a careful separation of species, by-product meal should be an ideal product to incorporate into pet food--it consists of the organs and innards and ground bones of the animals, which are exactly the parts that wolves and other predators prefer.

Poultry by-product meal has gotten a bad rap--most of the trendy dog food brands specifically exclude it on the label. Careless producers have been reported to include feathers and hair and improperly stored remains, and also throw in remains of dogs and cats killed in shelters.  This is a shame, because organ meats and offal can be very nutritious. Think of French cooking--tripe, trotters and chitterlings--or early American hog slaughtering--headcheese is what you get from boiling the cleaned head; all the leftover snips of meat and fat go into the sausage grinder. If you've ever read Never Cry Wolf, when the author attempted to see how well he could survive on a diet of mice, he soon realized that he needed to include the whole of the mouse, just like the wolves did. I think he must have skinned them.

While Ted Kerasote researches and writes about all the science of healthy dogs, he's also acquiring and training his puppy on the skills needed to survive as a (mostly) off-leash dog in Wyoming. Mr. Kerasote's previous dog Merle had already acquired a lot of survival skills, including watching out for cars. The town where they lived was smaller, all of the dogs ran loose and were able to socialize themselves using normal dog behaviors.  When Pukka came around there are more dogs on chains, more stupid owners, and more careless drivers.
That last paragraph sounds grim. It isn't--it's a lovely, happy book with plenty of elk bones to gnaw, pheasant to flush, and snowy slopes to slide. Wish I lived there.