Australia's iconic vet and RSPCA president gives a frank and lively account of the pets and animal welfare issues that have shaped his life.

From his time as a young country vet to running his own busy practice in suburban Melbourne, Hugh has treated all manner of animals and told off any number of owners. He has encountered everything from carpet snakes and circus elephants to coughing chihuahuas.

Hugh has taught three generations of Australians how to care for their pets (no creature too great or small) through his weekly ABC radio show.

As, at times, the indomitable national chief of the RSPCA and the global president of the WSPA, he has taken everyone on-from people perpetrating cruelty to animal rights activists, public service mandarins and even his own profession. Despite being forthright and sometimes controversial, he has received a string of honours, awards and appointments.

Doctor Hugh's memoir, written in his unmistakable tell-it-as-it-is voice, will delight, enrage, inform, entertain and teach every one of us how to care for and understand the rights of animals in our modern world.