"How to Keep a Human"
By Kaimana Wolff
The following review was provided from a dogs perspective.
As editorial assistant to a human, I spend many hours on the editors cushion, listening to a lot of guff written by one human about the rest of them. Humans, it seems, are fascinated by themselves. How refreshing, then, to hear a book by a fur person for a change: How to Keep a Human, as told by Amaruq.
Amaruq, like me, was a wolf hybrid. About the time my great-grandfather came out of the puppy den--an era my human refers to as "The Seventies"--Amaruq took up with a human and tried to "enwilden" her, to persuade her to move to the True Woods of the far north and learn to live in harmony with the natural world, as opposed to the citified environments humans build round themselves.
Before they can move to the Yukon, however, Amaruq and his human must pass the tests posed by their down-south environment: trains, poets, university, obedience school, and a series of male humans with mayhem on their minds. Amaruq must mature, and his human must qualify as a real Pack Leader.
No sooner does Amaruq win the struggle to move to the True Woods, than a new set of calamities begins. Warrior, sleuth, or philosopher, that mutt is up to his tail in trouble most of the time. In the last story, "The King of Dawson City", Amaruq combines brains, brawn and beauty to save Pack Leader from a fate worse than the pound.
I picked up useful insights about humans from this book, and I recommend it for puzzled pups and any canine, hybrid or not, who is mystified by human behaviour.
Keep your human on a short leash for the next reading, and you'll take home a happier human while adding to your own wisdom about what makes these strange, but beloved, creatures of ours do what they do.
How to Keep a Human is published by Motley Crew House, 2009 and available at Breakwater Books, Kingfisher Books and CMG Printing.
