Dr. Jeff Wells, a veterinarian in rural Colorado, has written a follow-up to his All My Patients Have Tales.   What is it about stories about animals that make books on the topic so popular?  Do they give us a way to increase our interactions with animals beyond the one or two pets we can have at home if we are lucky enough to share our lives with companion animals?  I don’t know the answer, but I find myself borrowing many books from the 636 (animal husbandry) section of the library.  

All My Patients Kick and Bite while not set in  North Yorkshire has much in common with the stories recounted in the James Herriot books.  Wells operates a small and large animal practice and makes visits to his patients at their ranches or farms and answers emergency calls at all hours at his clinic.   He patients range form llamas to bulls to lambs many with unique personalities.  The human companions to the animals Dr. Wells helps are sometime even more interesting and challenging than the ailing animals.  If you enjoyed All Creatures Great and Small you might want to give All My Patients Kick and Bite.

Ever by My Side : A Memoir in Eight Pets by Dr. Nick Trout, is the third book by the Angell Animal Medical Center staff surgeon.  The Iowa City Public Library was fortunate enough to have Nick read here as part of his 2010 book tour for Love is the Best Medicine.  That book was delightful and focused on the animals he had as patients at Angell Medical in Boston.  His current book, Ever by My Side, is an autobiography told through his pets.  He grew up in a working- class British suburb and his first pet is Patch, a large German shepherd.  He and his father, Duncan, developed a strong bond with Patch.  This bond ultimately lead him to explore the idea of becoming a veterinarian.

The book follows Nick through his studies at Oxford and then to the United States where he falls in love with veterinary surgery and the United States.  He makes the decision to stay stateside and it is very hard for his father.  In fact, his parents had moved to the Yorkshire Dales, James Herriot-land with hopes that Nick would join them there.  His father desperately wanted Nick to become a large and small animal vet, like Herriot.  But it wasn’t to be.  Nick starts his professional career in the desert southwest but eventually moves back to the Boston area.  Along the way we learn about the cat and dogs in his adult life as well as the dogs in his parents lives.  Like all pets, they do not live forever and the poignant stories he tells of relationships with the animals and his family is touching and often amusing.  His family grows to include a daughter with cystic fibrosis and her quest for a yellow Labrador is one of most special parts of the book.

If you love stories about animals and humans, you will not be disappointed by Ever by My Side.  The only thing better than reading it would be to have the author here again to read for us.