Review: Ranch of Dreams

The Country's Most Unusual Sanctuary, Where Every Animal Has a Story 

I thought it was going to be a heartwarming story about the animals at Black Beauty Ranch, a rescue and retirement community for animals in East Texas. And it was--a little bit. It started off autobiographically, then jumped into the individual animal stories. And those were pretty interesting, especially that of the famous chimpanzee who learned sign language. And the cats were interesting.

But after that the book devolved into interminably long and painful stories about animal "massacres" of burros, horses and bison. The stories of the burro rescues were fairly interesting (or was that the horses?) on account of the logistics of tracking down, capturing and transporting a big, wily creature.  But the bison chapter was simply a tedious retelling of how humans nearly exterminated the creature from the American West. Which was nothing to do with the ranch and very little to do with the two or three bison they eventually acquired. That part could have been deeply interesting, but it just wasn't there.

And then he got off into elephants. If you really want to read about the cruel treatment of elephants in all its gory detail, and the attempts of the San Diego Zoo and others to cover up their evil acts, fine. Read this.

But again, that's nothing to do with Black Beauty Ranch. I skipped most of it and jumped to (and enjoyed) the description of how they socialized the three elephants that they have.

It's a pretty old book, published in '97, about 25 years ago. I hope it's not still relevant. Maybe the author's intent was to draw his readers in with a promise of a unique and fascinating story of a ranch...and then blast them with the reality of animal abuses. But I know the reality and didn't appreciate it being thrown in my face.  I have enough nightmares already,