Lost and Found: Dogs, Cats, and Everyday Heroes at a Country Animal Shelter [Hardcover]

For some people, animal shelters seem dark, desperate places. All terrified barks and frightened hisses, the shelter is the last stop for many an animal on what has too often been a painful journey. For others, the shelter is a place of hope, where the perfect dog or cat waits to be adopted. In her time spent volunteering at the Columbia-Greene Humane Society, author Elizabeth Hess discovered that shelter life couldn't be defined in such simple terms. In this "subterranean animal culture," life is a "complex mix of people and animals, emotion and ideology ... where life and death decisions are made as regularly as coffee."

Hess, an arts journalist who has written for the Village Voice and the Washington Post among other publications, first visited the shelter to adopt a dog for her daughter. A "series of ramshackle buildings and a shabby trailer, surrounded by a few chickens and a couple of contented cats," the Columbia-Greene Humane Society grounds were humble at best. But what Hess found inside the shelter inspired her to write Lost and Found: Dogs, Cats, and Everyday Heroes at a Country Animal Shelter. From the dog kennels and the cat rooms to a puppy mill raid and rides in the shelter ambulance, Hess introduces innumerable animals and humans who will inspire, educate, and break your heart. With more than 20 million animals ending up in shelters each year in the United States alone, Hess's demand to rethink our relationships with domestic animals couldn't have come at a better time. Perceptive, well-written, and utterly moving, Lost and Found is a rare find indeed. --Stefanie Hargreaves

Hess has volunteered for the Columbia-Greene Humane Society for several years. Combining her obvious passion for such work with the skills she has learned as art critic for the Village Voice, she has produced a solidly written book that takes readers directly into the animal shelter. Like most shelters, the one featured here is short on money, staff, and time while long on abused and abandoned animals. Hess helps readers understand how and why the people who work in this field-both paid and volunteer-do what they do. She captures the frustrations of animal welfare advocates-too often confused with animal rights advocates-who feel trapped cleaning up the mess that the uncaring or irresponsible create while facing accusations from no-kill advocates. Anyone questioning the local animal shelter should read this book for an excellent standard of comparison. Recommended for all animal welfare collections.?Alicia Graybill, Lincoln City Libs., NE
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Hess, art critic for the Village Voice and longtime humane society volunteer, has put together this touching tribute to one of the most humane animal shelters on the East Coast. Describing the shelter's residents and the humans who are their dedicated caretakers, Hess tells the heartbreaking tales of the neglected, mistreated, and unwanted animals that make their way into animal shelters and introduces the reader to many of the shelter's inhabitants (cats, dogs, rabbits, birds, ferrets, and even a donkey). While narrating the unpredictable and often highly emotional events occurring at the shelter, Hess also provides sobering statistics and stark realities about the state of animal welfare in this country. Intelligent, passionate, interesting, and well written, Lost and Found has the power to inspire and anger, and it will be especially popular with animal lovers. Kathleen Hughes

A revelatory, smartly written account of the workings at an impressive animal shelter in New York State, from Village Voice art critic (and shelter volunteer) Hess. It is Hess's hope that this book ``will turn the most common myths about shelter animals inside out'': principally that the animals are losers, either sick or frantic or vicious. She accomplishes that task in the first few pages and the remainder of the book is given over to profiling the denizensboth human and animalof the Columbia-Greene Humane Society. The animals are a genial and motley crew of mostly dogs and cats, with a few rabbits and goats and others. The humans are a no-nonsense group of extraordinarily dedicated, underpaid men and women devoted to the welfare of animals. In the process, Hess dispels the notion of shelters as blood-mad abattoirs, stinking and neglected final ports of call for the dregs of the pet world (though Hess doesn't shrink from taking a long, hard look at the role of euthanasia in a shelter). A couple of the chapters provide adrenaline-pumping excitementgoing on patrol with a humane-law enforcement agent, taking part of a raid at a grotesque puppy milland there are stories aplenty of cruelty and its consequences: ``Chances are, when a crazy dog arrives at the shelter, there's a crazy person on the other end of the leash.'' Perhaps most troubling to Hess is how far our throw-away culture has gone, how we can show so little compunction about handing a pet over to a shelter, absolve ourselves of responsibilities, and how that in turn is reflected in the modern tenuousness of human survival as well. As Hess makes all too clear, shelters aren't slaughterhouses but sanctuaries, witnessprotection programs for animals that are more refugeesfrom neglect or abuse or abandonmentthan strays. (Author tour) -- Copyright ©1998, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

"Intelligent, warmhearted and deserving of attention."-the New York Times Book Review "Both joyful and terribly sad . . . Hess manages to write with the skill of a journalist, but also with the soul of a passionate animal lover, making Lost and Found a delight to read." (Boston Herald )

Hess has volunteered for the Columbia-Greene Humane Society for several years. Combining her obvious passion for such work with the skills she has learned as art critic for the Village Voice, she has produced a solidly written book that takes readers directly into the animal shelter. Like most shelters, the one featured here is short on money, staff, and time while long on abused and abandoned animals. Hess helps readers understand how and why the people who work in this field-both paid and volunteer-do what they do. She captures the frustrations of animal welfare advocates-too often confused with animal rights advocates-who feel trapped cleaning up the mess that the uncaring or irresponsible create while facing accusations from no-kill advocates. Anyone questioning the local animal shelter should read this book for an excellent standard of comparison. Recommended for all animal welfare collections.?Alicia Graybill, Lincoln City Libs., NE
(Library Journal )

For some people, animal shelters seem dark, desperate places. All terrified barks and frightened hisses, the shelter is the last stop for many an animal on what has too often been a painful journey. For others, the shelter is a place of hope, where the perfect dog or cat waits to be adopted. In her time spent volunteering at the Columbia-Greene Humane Society, author Elizabeth Hess discovered that shelter life couldn't be defined in such simple terms. In this "subterranean animal culture," life is a "complex mix of people and animals, emotion and ideology ... where life and death decisions are made as regularly as coffee."

Hess, an arts journalist who has written for the Village Voice and the Washington Post among other publications, first visited the shelter to adopt a dog for her daughter. A "series of ramshackle buildings and a shabby trailer, surrounded by a few chickens and a couple of contented cats," the Columbia-Greene Humane Society grounds were humble at best. But what Hess found inside the shelter inspired her to write Lost and Found: Dogs, Cats, and Everyday Heroes at a Country Animal Shelter. From the dog kennels and the cat rooms to a puppy mill raid and rides in the shelter ambulance, Hess introduces innumerable animals and humans who will inspire, educate, and break your heart. With more than 20 million animals ending up in shelters each year in the United States alone, Hess's demand to rethink our relationships with domestic animals couldn't have come at a better time. Perceptive, well-written, and utterly moving, Lost and Found is a rare find indeed. -

(Amazon.com Review - Stefanie Hargreaves ) --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

From the dog kennels and the cat rooms to a puppy mill raid and rides in the shelter ambulance, Elizabeth Hess introduces innumerable animals and humans who will inspire, educate, and break readers hearts. Intelligent, warmhearted and deserving of attention (New York Times Book Review).

Life and death, love and rage, loyalty and betrayal, in humans and in animals, it's all here. Few can have guessed what high drama lies inside the most inconspicuous shelters. This book takes us behind the scenes, often by the scruff of our necks. Lost and Found opened my eyes; let it do the same for you.

Elizabeth Hess is a former art critic and columnist for The Village Voice. A freelance journalist, hundreds of her articles have appeared in The Washington Post, New York, Art in America, Artforum, Art News, The New York Observer, and Ms. She lives in New York City and East Chatham, New York.