God's Dog: A Celebration of the North American Coyote

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God's Dog: A Celebration of the North American Coyote

4.16 of 5 stars 4.16 · rating details · 19 ratings · 5 reviews

For two years naturalist/photographer Hope Ryden camped in remote areas of the West observing and photographing coyotes. With eloquence and clarity, she describes the private life of this much-maligned animal in a book that has been heralded as the classic treatise on the subject. While observing her controversial subjects, Hope endured hardships and peril, events she weav...more

Paperback, 340 pages

Published May 31st 2005 by Backinprint.com (first published 1975)

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Feb 08, 2013 Althea rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: nature

This was such a joy to read. It was fascinating to learn more about coyotes, but I enjoyed seeing the author's approach to her work even more. Ryden was conducting some of the first in depth, in the field research on coyotes, and was continually presented with information from both ranchers and other biologists that was completely wrong. Not only that, but she was a woman scientist in the 70's doing field research surrounded by ranchers with a violent hatred towards her study subjects.

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Oct 16, 2010 Robert rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2010

Hope Ryden spent two years among the Coyotes, observing and writing about their lives. This book has real insight into the life and history of the coyote, and is a bit of history itself, reflecting the challenges environmentalists faced when it was written, in the 1970s. I also found myself mulling over some of the human questions she raises in the book – does a creature need to be capable of cruelty or violence to be capable of love? Of generosity? Some of the philosophical musings come off as...more Hope Ryden spent two years among the Coyotes, observing and writing about their lives. This book has real insight into the life and history of the coyote, and is a bit of history itself, reflecting the challenges environmentalists faced when it was written, in the 1970s. I also found myself mulling over some of the human questions she raises in the book – does a creature need to be capable of cruelty or violence to be capable of love? Of generosity? Some of the philosophical musings come off as just so much mush, but, in combination with the heaping helpings of detail, some of them add up to real questions to ponder.

In the physical domain, I found it particularly fascinating to consider the horrible effects of the attempts to eradicate the coyotes from rangeland. There’s a neat Teddy Roosevelt connection – he wrote a letter to General Young, the superintendent of Yellowstone National Park, suggesting that killing off the predators might not, in the end, be good for the wildlife in the park. It was ignored, as would be generations of others with similar messages. The chapter Man, The Predator, although ill-named (is it really predatory to kill something without intending to eat it), is a study in wastefulness and environmental ignorance. The wholesale slaughter of coyotes yields, if anything, a slight increase in sheep deaths, along with a path of destruction that went beyond the bodies of coyotes to include persistent poisons and other environmental damage. The really sad part was how ineffective it was – coyotes rarely killed sheep, preferring rodents, and lacing dead bodies with poison essentially trained (by selection) them to avoid carrion – which probably led to a few more lamb kills. And coyotes have a great deal of reproductive variability – only a few pups, or many, depending on the food supply. So, short of eradicating the whole species (which was, actually, the aim), the fecundity of the coyote was hard to defeat.

Other interesting tidbits:

The contrast between the picky mating habits of the coyote, where the male helps rear the pups, with the relatively indiscriminate mating of dogs, where they generally don’t. A footnote says that some male huskies have been known to try to help raise their puppies, but no other dogs. I wonder how much of this is because there is no role (and usually no opportunity) for them to help out in the domestic situation? Perhaps we would see some different behavior if dogs had to find food for themselves?

The details of how difficult and testy pet coyotes are, always sensitive to even tiny changes in their environments and unwilling to fully place its trust in a human. There’s a blog-cum-book that I’ve read about someone raising a coyote (under what seemed particularly appropriately circumstances) that had similar more detailed descriptions, but I’m most reminded of Shrinking the Cat, where the presumptive anscestors of modern cats, were (although not identical) raised as pets.

Coy-dogs, coyote-dog hybrids don’t mix back with the coyote population, since they come into heat at the wrong season. This also means their offspring are born in a poor season for foraging.

This book is successful as a work of natural history and well worth reading despite its age. I’m leaving out describing the meat of the book, the everyday lives described with some verve.

I also recommend Lily Pond, by the same author, which I read some years back – although beavers may not have the sex appeal (or even the cuteness-factor) of coyotes and their pups, there was a lot more for me to learn about them, since coyotes are already such an integral part of the popular bestiary.

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Sep 08, 2008 Craig rated it 4 of 5 stars Recommends it for: Everyone

Recommended to Craig by: Jen

I continue to derive pleasure from reading about the foolishness of mankind in general when it attempts to modify the natural world. This book goes a long way in reinforcing my core beliefs that most people are completely ignorant of the complexity of nature. I do not understand it any more than the next person, but I am content to leave it be and respect other creature's right to life.

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Feb 05, 2013 Chuck Self added it

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Mar 29, 2013 Judy added it

Shelves: nonfiction

This book was very well written and was interesting but it was written in 1975 and is now outdated. The author states that coyotes are found mainly west of the Mississippi and in some NE states. Now they're almost everywhere and snacking on lapdogs in the suburbs. I guess I will have to find a more current book to read about behavior of coyotes in Ohio.

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Jul 14, 2007 Tulara marked it as to-read

California had coyotes where I lived and the village where I live in New Mexico has them too - maybe I can find out why they always know I am not a coyote when I howl with them...

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Apr 27, 2013 Michael added it · review of another edition

Apr 26, 2013 Mila rated it 5 of 5 stars

Apr 01, 2013 Donna Sweet rated it 3 of 5 stars

Feb 01, 2013 Stacey rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: natural-history

Oct 18, 2012 Bruce rated it 4 of 5 stars

Jul 31, 2012 Henry rated it 5 of 5 stars

Aug 23, 2012 Amelia marked it as to-read

Jun 25, 2012 Mami rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

May 25, 2012 Bruce rated it 3 of 5 stars

Mar 28, 2012 Alisha Mccoy marked it as to-read

Sep 29, 2011 Christina rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: animal-nonfic

Jan 14, 2011 Ceil added it · review of another edition

Dec 20, 2010 Peacegal marked it as to-read

Shelves: at-the-library

Nov 14, 2010 Bob Stocker rated it 3 of 5 stars

Nov 02, 2010 Tee Iseminger rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Aug 14, 2010 Maggie Wolfe Riley rated it 4 of 5 stars

Mar 04, 2010 Jason rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: ecology-nature-conservation

Jun 20, 2011 Joan marked it as to-read

Jan 08, 2010 DeCarabas rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: nonfiction

Oct 22, 2009 Ckhardman added it

Sep 28, 2009 Wolfread marked it as to-read

Shelves: bios-nonfic

Sep 20, 2009 Lindsay Sjolin rated it 3 of 5 stars

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Shelves: nature

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