Recent Books

American Kennel Club. The Complete Dog Book: 20th Edition. New York: Ballantine Books, 2006.

This book is an excellent resource for information on the different types of dog breeds. One can find out how a specific breed behaves, what its coat texture is like, and much more – many descriptions of the breeds take up more than five pages. Surprisingly, it does mention some of the strange personalities these purebred dogs have. One disadvantage to this book (and other encyclopedias of dog breeds) is that it only discusses pedigree dogs.

Goodman, Alan H., Deborah Heath, and M. Susan Lindee. Genetic Nature/Culture: Anthropology and Science beyond the Two-Culture Divide. Berkley: University of California Press, 2003.

This book is a compilation of essays in areas ranging from genetic modification, genetic diseases, and ethics in the field of genetic work. It has many thought provoking essays on well educated people in the field, and critically analyzes some of the practices being used today. The main theme of the book is culture versus science. There are three articles in this book that focus on animal genetics: Kinship, Genes, and Cloning: Life after Dolly by Sarah Franklin, For the Love of a Good Dog: Webs of Action in the World of Dog Genetics by Donna Haraway and 98% Chimpanzee and 35% Daffodil: The Human Genome in Evolutionary and Cultural Context by Jonathan Marks. It’s a good book for some of the more abstract issues in the area of genetic work.

Bourdon, Richard M. Understanding Animal Breeding. Upper Saddle River: Prentice Hall, 1999.

Written by Richard Bourdon, who is experienced in animal breeding (not just dogs), this book is a good resource for somebody with no prior knowledge in the area. It talks about probabilities of the animal inheriting a trait from its predecessors, consistency in breeding, and genes in general. It’s well organized and easy to understand with charts and tables. This book could possibly be used for a beginner’s course in animal genetics.