Contained within these pages are more than thirty of Wilkins' favorite animal stories, a book dominated by dogs. "When wolves decided it would be okay to become lapdogs," Wilkins says, "human beings got a benefit beyond measure." But in the telling of his tales the author acknowledges the worth of many other creatures.The stories here range from the mystery of who killed Lincoln's dog to a canine burlesque star to a dog that accompanies a trek to Oregon to escape the Midwest Dust Bowl, from a car chaser's passion to the only dog know to file a writ of habeas corpus for freedom, from a red rooster that captured the heart of a town, to monkeys as aides to paraplegics to goats that forecast weather and volcanic rumblings. And a dead whale who tale circles the world!