“…Laidlaw has a no holds barred approach in conveying today’s world for dogs…He lightens the subject matter through his eloquent writing style and by interjecting anecdotes from young Dog Champions who are working to better the lives of man’s best friend.”
Click here to read the full review.
Pajama Press is proud to announce that No Shelter Here: Making the World a Kinder Place for Dogs by Rob Laidlaw has won the 2013/2014 Hackmatack Children’s Choice Book Award for English Non-Fiction.
No Shelter Here has proven to be a popular children’s choice book; it has already won the 2013 Forest of Reading Silver Birch Non-Fiction Award and is nominated for the 2014/2015 Pennsylvania Young Readers’ Choice Award.
The Hackmatack Children’s Choice Award is a reading program that encourages a love of reading among children in grades 4–6 in Canada’s Atlantic provinces. Participating students choose their favourite books from among a list of 10 in each category: English Fiction, English Non-Fiction, French Fiction, and French Non-Fiction. You can read about this year’s other three winners here.
Cat Champions: Caring for our Feline Friends is the companion book to No Shelter Here. It is already nominated for next year’s award program, and we look forward to sharing it with students in Atlantic Canada in the 2014–2015 school year.
Congratulations, Rob, and congratulations to all of the students who read and voted this year!
Pajama Press is pleased to announce that all three of the books we published in our first season have been selected for Bank Street College of Education’s “Best Children’s Books of the Year 2013” list.
No Shelter Here: Making the World a Kinder Place for Dogs by Rob Laidlaw and Last Airlift: A Vietnamese Orphan’s Rescue from War by Marsha Forchuk Skrypuch appear in the Information Books section for ages nine to twelve, while True Blue by Deborah Ellis was selected for Fiction ages fourteen and up.
Congratulations to Rob, Marsha and Deborah.
Click here to view the full list.
Pajama Press is pleased to announce that all three of our titles nominated for this year’s Ontario Library Association Forest of Reading® awards have been recognized as winners or honour books in their categories.
No Shelter Here: Making the World a Kinder Place for Dogs by Rob Laidlaw received The Silver Birch Non-Fiction Award™ in today’s ceremony at the Toronto Festival of Trees. Yesterday at The Red Maple Non-Fiction Award™ ceremony Marsha Forchuk Skrypuch’s Last Airlift: A Vietnamese Orphan’s Rescue from War was announced as an honour book. Don’t Laugh at Giraffe by Rebecca Bender is also an honour book for the Blue Spruce Award™. In 2012 Rebecca’s first picture book, Giraffe and Bird, was the winner of The Blue Spruce Award™.
The Forest of Reading® is a reading program run by the Ontario Library Association. Each year, over 250,000 participants read a shortlist of books in their age category and vote for their favourites.
Pajama Press extends our most sincere congratulations to Rob Laidlaw, Marsha Forchuk Skrypuch and Rebecca Bender. We are thrilled to be a part of this exciting program.
We are pleased to announce that No Shelter Here: Making the World a Kinder Place for Dogs by Rob Laidlaw has been nominated for the 2013-2014 Hackmatack Awards.
The Hackmatack Awards are Atlantic Canada’s children’s choice reading awards for students in grades four to six. For more information about the program, visit www.hackmatack.ca.
Congratulations to Rob Laidlaw for this nomination. Young “Dog Champions” across the country will be celebrating this news.
No Shelter Here: Making the World a Kinder Place for Dogs has been released in new a Canadian paperback edition. The dog welfare book, which talks about issues facing dogs worldwide as well as the inspiring people who are working to help them, is sporting a brand new cover image. Why switch up cover images between editions? Author Rob Laidlaw is here to share some background information about the change.
The new cover
The original cover
“While many of the wonderful images in No Shelter Here: Making the World a Kinder Place for Dogs are my own, taken during my travels to various regions of the world, I can’t take credit for the remarkable photo gracing the cover of the book’s paperback edition. That image was captured by my friend Jo-Anne McArthur during a visit she made to a dog shelter just outside of Nairobi, Kenya. I expect the two dogs in the photo didn’t have a pleasant past and that’s why they were in the shelter, but they’re obviously still friendly, curious, and full of enthusiasm for life. I think their photo represents the core idea behind No Shelter Here. The book deals with the issues and challenges that dogs around the world have experienced in the past and continue to experience today, but it’s also an enthusiast, optimistic, hopeful book that should inspire young readers to take action. I hope the cover photo is as meaningful to kids and adults and strikes a chord with them as much as it did with me.”
Rob Laidlaw is the author of several animal welfare books for kids. He is also a chartered biologist and the founder of Zoocheck Canada, a wildlife protection agency.
Dog Tales is a series where author and animal advocate Rob Laidlaw shares stories and facts from his travels and work in dog advocacy.
When I was in Tokyo, I went to see the memorial statue of Hachiko the dog just outside the Shibuya train station. While Hachiko is extremely famous in Japan, he’s not quite so famous in other parts of the world—but he should be.
In 1924 Hachiko’s “owner” would take the train to work and return each evening. Hachiko would wait for him to return, but in May 1925 his owner passed away and did not return. Hachiko waited faithfully at the train station every day for nine years. During that time he became famous. In 1932 Hachiko also passed away, but his memory lives on today. In No Shelter Here: Making the World a Kinder Place for Dogs I tell the story of the Greyfriar’s Bobby, a small Skye terrier who also spent years waiting for his “owner” to return. Hachiko, Bobby and other dogs like them can teach us a lot. Perhaps we should all be a bit more like dogs.
Just days before the paperback release of No Shelter Here: Making the World a Kinder Place for Dogs, Open Book Toronto has posted an interview with author Rob Laidlaw. In the interview, Rob talks about puppy mills, reading recommendations for animal lovers, and the dogs he has rescued and loved—even if it meant kicking down a door.
Click here to see the interview.
Whether you are a young activist wanting to help dogs or a family considering adopting a canine family member No Shelter Here is a good book to read. Since it deals with issues affecting dogs, how to make things better for our four-legged friends, things to consider before adopting a dog as well as ways to ensure a good life for an adopted dog, this book should be available in libraries – including school libraries.
–Glen Perrett
Click here to read the full review.
Welcome to Dog Tales, a series where author and animal advocate Rob Laidlaw shares stories and facts from his travels and work in dog advocacy.
I’m always amazed at how wild dogs can exist in the midst of heavily urbanized environments. A year ago I even saw a big coyote casually trotting down the sidewalk of a busy downtown street. But it’s not that surprising when you think about it. Both wild dogs and feral domesticated dogs have integrated themselves into human environments for a very long time and I can’t see that changing anytime soon.
One of the dogs that criss-crosses that amorphous dividing line between wild and domesticated is the dingo, a wild dog found everywhere in Australia except on the island of Tasmania. With a short, usually golden-yellow or brown coat, dingoes are stunning dogs that inhabit a wide variety of habitats. They tend to live in pairs, but can occasionally be found in small family groups.
While no one knows for sure how dingoes came to Australia, genetic testing has confirmed that they are descendents of dogs that probably came from southern China many thousands of years ago. Their scientific name is often cited as Canis lupus dingo (meaning it is a subspecies of the grey wolf) or Canis familiaris dingo (meaning it is a subspecies of the domesticated dog). There is a lot of argument about which one is right.
When Europeans first arrived on the remote island continent, they discovered dingoes living in relative harmony with Aboriginal people, sometimes serving as camp sentries or as hunting assistants.
When sheep farming was brought to Australia, dingoes found a new and easy food source. Unfortunately, killing sheep led to dingoes being treated as pests and they’ve been mercilessly hunted and killed ever since.
To keep dingoes out of southeast Australia, a 5,614 km (3,488 mile) fence was erected. Construction of the 180 cm (5.9 ft) high fence began in the early 1880s and was completed in 1885. North of the fence, dingoes are treated as wildlife, while south of the fence they were killed as pests. That’s still the case today.
However, the biggest threat to the dingo now is hybridization (breeding with domesticated dogs). Pure dingoes are very rare and many wildlife experts consider them an endangered species.
Primitive dogs, often dingo-like, can be found around the world. The New Guinea Singing Dog is a primitive dog that is thought to have been brought to the island several thousand years ago. Left alone, they developed into their own breed. Other early dogs are North America’s Carolina dog, sometimes called the American dingo, Israel’s Canaan dog and the Pariah dogs of India.
Wild and feral dogs have been with us for a long time and for much of that time they’ve been mercilessly persecuted. That’s been the history of coyotes in North America—people waging an endless war against them. But coyotes have beaten the odds and they’ve survived and prospered. I hope the other dogs do too.