Gods Dog: A Celebration of the North American Coyote

Product Details

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 weaves into her beautiful story.

"Full of charm and tenacious inquisitiveness as the appealing animal she pleads is allowed to live."

--The Washington Post

"A faultless and reasoned attitude."

--The New York Times

Product Reviews

(5 stars) - If Coyotes are Good Enough for God, They're Good Enough for Me!
It's a quick read, and hard to put down. Since I read it at breakfast, I linger through my corn flakes, so I can stall through "just one more page" before I must take off for work!

My dogs and I walk every evening, and on rare occasion, chance upon one come across from the nearby forest preserve. We walk respectfully past each other - he, on a straight path toward destination unknown, we, on meandering path enjoying it all.
I do pick up fast food discard as much as I can to discourage God's dog from coming into our neighborhood to search out easy meals - few neighbors appreciate him as much as I may.

Thank you Hope Ryden for penning your insights.

(5 stars) - Incredibly Wonderful Book!
Hope Ryden is a beautiful writer and she describes her adventures in observing America's most intelligent animal, the coyote, in a way that makes this book hard to put down. The coyote has been unjustly maligned and Hope Ryden uses scientific methods and a writer's skills to tell us why. It is heart-breaking to note that our government (both federal and state) continues a cruel, unethical program to try to exterminate this much-needed predator in the ecosytem. Ryden describes near the end of this book how 500,000 of God's dogs are poisoned, trapped and shot annually and we pay for it through our tax dollars.
I'd also highly recommend The Daily Coyote The Daily Coyote: A Story of Love, Survival, and Trust in the Wilds of Wyoming, Barbara Kingsolver's fictional masterpiece based on science, Prodigal Summer Prodigal Summer: A Novel and Eastern Coyote Eastern Coyote.

(5 stars) - At first I was dismayed at the low quality of the photographs until I realized the book was published in the 1970s.
I was hoping for better photos. However, I realized the author was taking photographs in the 1970s when black and white photography was considered artsy and digital cameras with quick shutter speeds had not yet been invented. The photos are blurry. The writing needs editing for brevity. The book seems more like a personal journal than a documentary on coyotes. I appreciated the author's pioneering compassion and political activism for coyotes who are often demonized by humans. Overall, the book seems like an important piece of history in the evolution of how human's view coyotes.

(5 stars) - A Wonderful Resource!
I used to think of coyotes as being from the wide open spaces of the West. But then my family moved to upstate New York. Our house is located in a semirural area and we still hear the coyotes almost nightly. I've never actually seen one up close - they seem to keep to the woods - but their howling is one of the eeriest sounds I've ever heard. First you hear a frenzied yipping, like a horde of mad pipers, and then they start their oooOOOOOOOOOoooing. I could write a Gothic novel with unseen coyotes as a particularly ominous aspect of melancholy atmosphere.

Few people are certainly more dedicated to coyotes, however, than Hope Ryden. She spent two years camping, often under difficult conditions, in isolated backwater areas of Montana and Wyoming, watching her coyotes for hours while trying not to alert them of her presence (not an easy thing to accomplish - they have excellent smell and hearing). At one point, her life became endangered when she got lost in deep snow. But most impressive is that she was actually able to keep of track specific individuals over the course of months. How she was able to recognize them after being away for weeks is beyond me, but the insights she gained as a result are well worth the effort and will doubtlessly transform any reader into a coyote lover as their eyes are opened to their hidden world. Coyotes are, after all, notoriously secretive, a trait that has undeniably contributed to both their plentiful numbers and incredible adaptability. The puppy chapter is as adorable as expected (Dad is at one point described as "long-suffering"), although the parents' poor treatment of the "nanny" is rather sad. They also seem to have the astonishing ability to produce a mouse on demand for their babies to play with.

Although Ryden's focus was wild populations, a brief section that focused on "pet" coyotes is also highly informative. There was the female, for example, who took a black Lab as her mate for life and had a little black puppy by him. Ryden's skills as a writer, as well as her obvious admiration for the animal, are at their best when she relates the story of beautiful Amber, whose mute sorrow tells of her betrayal by the humans who were meant to care for her. Charlie fans will certainly enjoy being able to compare Shreve Stockton's experiences, as outlined in both her blog The Daily Coyote and recent memoir of the same name.

It was actually Shreve and Charlie who first got me interested in these wonderful canines, but it is Ryden's "God's Dog" that contains all the requisite "technical" information that puts Charlie in greater context. Although the book was published in 1989, the field research was done in the mid-70's, which is reflected at times in Ryden's prose, particularly when she launches on a sort of hippie-esque rant about how the white man destroyed everything. But then again, her reports on the cruelty of "pest control" programs, as well as individual humans, may well prove her point. The bit about using guard dogs to watch sheep sounded very promising (instead of killing coyotes, they will often enact canine dominance rituals) and I wonder how widespread that has become since then. They should really come out with an updated edition, especially since the coyote's habitat has now expanded to all of North and Central America. Today, a book like this is more vital than ever.

Also: DEFINTELY read Stockton's "The Daily Coyote."

(5 stars) - What if humans were judged on how we treated coyotes?
I don't think we would fare well. Reading animal research is often tedious but this book is an engaging read as well as being informative. The common knowledge about coyotes held by many people is that they are pests to be squashed like a bothersome bug, yet the same people treat their pet dogs as members of the family. If you are a reader who wonders if the rumors about this animal are true and you want answers, this book is a very good place to start because you will read the whole thing (it is very entertaining) and you will be able to use the observations made about the animal to make your own decisions about coyotes.

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