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Dead Pets book review

Dead Pets: Stuff Them, Eat Them, Love Them by Sam Leith

Don't be put off by the title. This is a brilliantly written, entertaining and informative book. Depressed by my seemingly endless research for my Pet Bereavement Support course I decided a little 'light' reading provided by this book might be just what was needed. 

Sam Leith is 31 years old. He is Literary Editor of the Daily Telegraph, and also contributes book reviews, snide gossip and other nonsense to the Spectator and Literary Review.  He lives in Brixton with his brother and a cat called Henry.

From Greyfriars Bobby to Gerard De Nerval's pampered lobster, all domesticated life, and death, is in the book.

Inspired by the untimely demise of his pet hamster Silky for which, some twenty years later, he still holds himself responsible Sam Leith explores and explains the universe of the Dead Pet. From Dead Pets in public life (Champion the Wonder Horse, Laika the astro-dog) to the real-life pet cemeteries of Beverly Hills; from tips for budding taxidermists to tear-jerking poems, songs and pet requiems; from a comparison of attitudes and doctrines of pet afterlife across  religions, to South American recipes for guinea pig and bunny it is all in the book.

Married to a Vet, I was amused by observations on taking Henry to the vet 'a very nice one indeed in Herne Hill - the woman behind the counter was incredibly friendly.  Everyone was incredibly friendly. The experience was oddly infantilising.  The thing is they sort of half talk to you and half talk to the cat. The vet's tiny outer office/waiting room was crammed with people and animals waiting to be seen, and he found himself standing by the door with his cat cage hoisted to upper-chest height.  A dog's owner was reading the label of the side of one of the packets comprising the enormous mountain the landslide of Hills Science Plan products that, now he came to think of it, was the reason the waiting room was so small. Mr Leith also adds a note re Hills Science plan foods concluding that: Your cat will guilt-trip you into buying it. Then it won't want to eat it. Henry sulked for three days and begged for Sheba. My husband's waiting area has now been re-arranged!

Another chapter on Henry 1V mentions Mr. Leith's mother. Apparently desperate to be a grandmother and despairing of her two older sons 'ever persuading a girl to stay still long enough to produce a grandchild; and perhaps in the back of her mind, worried that her feckless third son might end up doing so by accident. She refers to Henry as the grand-kitten. That said, this is a woman who, while pregnant with her third child, dreamed that she had given birth to a litter of red setter puppies, and woke up infinitely happy and refreshed.  Was she disappointed, finally, when humans came out?'

As an Irish Setter owner and the proud owner of two sons and no grandchildren as yet I can relate to this woman!

I can recommend this book to anyone with an interest in Pet Bereavement Support as there is so much information both historical and present. Yes, some of it is written with tongue in cheek, but even the chapters on taxidermy are written to entertain and educate.

The book is published by Canongate.  ISBN 1 84195 648 1. The price is £9.99.