A GOOD DOG: THE STORY OF ORSON, WHO CHANGED MY LIFE
Book ID/图书代码： 01240008B24551
English Summary/英文概要： “People who love dogs often talk about a ‘lifetime’ dog. I’d heard the phrase a dozen times before I came to recognize its significance. Lifetime dogs are dogs we love in especially powerful, sometimes inexplicable ways.”–Jon Katz In this gripping and deeply touching book, bestselling author Jon Katz tells the story of his lifetime dog, Orson: a beautiful border collie–intense, smart, crazy, and unforgettable.
From the moment Katz and Orson meet, when the dog springs from his traveling crate at Newark airport and panics the baggage claim area, their relationship is deep, stormy, and loving. At two years old, Katz’s new companion is a great herder of school buses, a scholar of refrigerators, but a dud at herding sheep. Everything Katz attempts– obedience training, herding instruction, a new name, acupuncture, herb and alternative therapies–helps a little but not enough, and not for long. “Like all border collies and many dogs,” Katz writes, “he needed work. I didn’t realize for some time I was the work Orson would find.”
While Katz is trying to help his dog, Orson is helping him, shepherding him toward a new life on a two-hundred-year-old hillside farm in upstate New York. There, aided by good neighbors and a tolerant wife, hip-deep in sheep, chickens, donkeys, and more dogs, the man and his canine companion explore meadows, woods, and even stars, wade through snow, bask by a roaring wood stove, and struggle to keep faith with each other. There, with deep love, each embraces his unfolding destiny.
A Good Dog is a book to savor. Just as Orson was the author’s lifetime dog, his story is a lifetime treasure–poignant, timeless, and powerful.
Chinese Summary/中文概要： “愛狗人士經常會談論起自己的‘終身夥伴’。在意識到其意義之前，我曾經聽過這句話十幾次。‘終身夥伴’有時用一種不可言喻的方式，給予我們那些特別強烈的愛。”——喬恩•卡茨在這部生動的感人小說中，暢銷書作者喬恩•卡茨講述了他生活中的終身伴侶，奧森的故事：一隻漂亮的—熱情，聰明，瘋狂和令人難忘的博得牧羊犬。
從卡茨與奧森相遇的那刻起，在Newark（紐華克市/美國新澤西州港市）的機場，當一隻來自長途旅箱中的，不知所措的在行李寄存區域的狗狗，由此展開了他們一段深厚的，熱烈的，摯愛的夥伴關係。卡茨的新夥伴，奧森兩歲大時，是一部校車的偉大放牧者，冰箱學家，但卻是一隻牧羊犬的擺設。卡茨一切都嘗試過了——口令訓練，放牧指令，一個新的名字，針刺療法，草藥和另類療法——但還是美中不足，而且遠遠不夠。“像所有的博得牧羊犬和一些狗狗”卡茨寫道，“他（奧森）需要工作。有段時間我沒有意識到，而在訓練奧森時我發現了這一點”。
雖然卡茨試圖幫助他的狗，而奧森也在回饋他的幫助，引領他朝向一個在紐約北部有兩百年歷史的山坡農場的新生活。那裡，有好鄰居和一個寬容的妻子，一些自由歌唱的羊群，雞群，驢子，和狗狗的幫助，男人和他的犬類夥伴共同探索草地，森林，甚至還有星空，徒涉穿越雪地，在劈啪作響的柴爐旁取暖，相互間努力保持忠實。在那裡，用深深的愛意，擁抱每一次他那未盡的塵緣。
《A Good Dog 》（馴狗有方）是一部值得細細品味的書。就像奧森曾為作者終身伴侶一樣，他的故事是作者一生的深刻的，永恆的和偉大的珍愛。(Sandy)
Awards/获奖情况：Barking, lunging and nipping at visitors, terrorizing school buses and crashing through a window screen to pursue a cat in a neighbor’s house, the hero of this absorbing, if melodramatic, memoir hardly seems a good dog. But Orson’s fangs are firmly set in the heart of dog journalist Katz (The Dogs of Bedlam Farm), who tries everything to soothe his frenzy—acupuncture, chiropractic, "Shen calming herbs from China," sessions with a "shamanic soul retriever"—then moves to a farm where the border collie’s native sheep-herding instincts might flourish. Ultimately, the therapeutic benefit accrues to the author, who finds in Orson a "soul mate" who saved him from mid-life crisis in the New Jersey suburbs and brought him to an ecstatic communion with nature. Katz’s flagrant anthropomorphizing and his intense emotional involvement ("I was nearly crying with frustration, torn by my growing love for this dog") and heart-to-hearts with Orson ("[w]e can’t go on this way," he sobs after a school-bus incident) will resonate with dog lovers, while perhaps puzzling others. When he Katz gets some psychological distance, though, his subtle, evocative descriptions of the beasts around him—including Rose, another border collie whose brilliant herding steals the show—vividly capture the fascinating, enigmatic lives of animals. Photos.(Sept. 26) ---From Publishers Weekly Katz’s previous books have detailed his life with dogs (A Dog Year, 2002, and The Dogs of Bedlam Farm, 2004), the place of dogs in modern society (The New Work of Dogs, 2003), and what dogs have taught him (Katz on Dogs, 2005). When he first laid eyes on highly intelligent but anxious Orson the border collie, he watched as the dog streaked through the Newark airport upon being released from his shipping crate. Under Orson’s influence, the author moved from suburban New Jersey to a farm in New York and began a new life of dog training, sheepherding, and writing. Orson was Katz’s "lifetime dog," the one he felt a powerful, life-changing connection with--but Orson was a difficult dog. In a lyrical series of vignettes, the author writes of his working border collie, Rose (the personality opposite of Orson); the rooster, Winston; sheep; donkeys; and the impossible Orson, whom Katz thought was destined to work sheep but whose work became the author. This is a lovely memoir. Nancy Bent---From Booklist
About the Author/作者介绍： JON KATZ（乔恩•卡茨）兩次入圍美國國家雜誌報導文學獎National Magazine Award（被譽為雜誌出版界的普立茲獎）,為紐約時報、華爾街日報、滾石雜誌專欄作家。
作者曾任電視製作人，現為媒體論述，新聞記者。十八本著作涵蓋各層面的題材，除了在科技領域的專長，他也身為美國 Association of Pet Dog Trainers 訓犬協會一員，在著作中，與讀者分享與愛犬相處的歲月和與狗兒幸福生活的哲學。
Jon Katz has written eighteen books–six novels and twelve works of nonfiction–including A Dog Year, The Dogs of Bedlam Farm, A Good Dog, and the New York Times bestseller Dog Days. A two-time finalist for the National Magazine Award, he writes columns about dogs and rural life for the online magazine Slate, and has written for The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Rolling Stone, and the AKC Gazette. Katz is also a photographer, a member of the Association of Pet Dog Trainers, and co-host of the award-winning radio show Dog Talk on Northeast Public Radio. He lives on Bedlam Farm in upstate New York with his wife, Paula Span, and his dogs, sheep, steers and cows, goats, donkeys, barn cats, irritable rooster, Winston, and three hens.
JON KATZ兩次入圍美國國家雜誌報導文學獎National Magazine Award（被譽為雜誌出版界的普立茲獎）,為紐約時報、華爾街日報、滾石雜誌專欄作家。
作者曾任電視製作人，現為媒體論述，新聞記者 。十八本著作涵蓋各層面的題材，除了在科技領域的專長，他也身為美國 Association of Pet Dog Trainers 訓犬協會一員，在著作中，與讀者分享與愛犬相處的歲月和與狗兒幸福生活的哲學。
Format:照片
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