Dogs on the Trail: A Year in the Life, by Blair Braverman and Quince Mountain (Ecco Publishing, 144pp, 2021, $17.99, review by Skye Anderson)
Does your dog love to run? Does he love winter? Can you picture him pulling you on a dogsled?
Author Blair Braverman dreamed all these things growing up and made sure her dreams came true: in grad school, she met her husband, following him to northern Wisconsin. As a writer, she was able to research and live the sled dog life and has written a lovely book full of short bites of information, divided into chapters like Summer, Autumn, Winter and Mud!
Dogs on the Trail highlights some of their dogs - their likes and dislikes, their personalities and positions on the team, even how they got their name. Did you know that often a litter has a theme with all the pups' names reflecting that theme? For example, if the litter is Beans, some of the pups may be named Refried, Garbanzo, Fava and Hari (short for haricots verts).
Dogs also is a picture book with lovely tributes to dogs and winter scenes, not all of which are captioned. You will learn about mushing, about huskies, cranberry bogs, the dog bus, booties, trail mail, wild animals, retirement, and see plenty of puppy pictures.
Sub-chapter pages will fascinate you with information about feeding frozen slabs of deer and bear and pork and chicken and even the occasional beaver - the huge amounts a sled dog eats when racing for several days -about sled dog retirement and the book ends with puppies, carrying on the legacy.
What would we change about Dogs? Not much, except some of the print across photos is hard to read - plus we would appreciate a slightly larger font. Other than that, this is a lovely, educational coffee table book that we will give to our nephews to nourish their fascination about dogs.
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