Take a photo of a barcode or cover
51 reviews for:
The Daily Coyote: A Story of Love, Survival, and Trust in the Wilds of Wyoming
Shreve Stockton
3.84 AVERAGE
51 reviews for:
The Daily Coyote: A Story of Love, Survival, and Trust in the Wilds of Wyoming
Shreve Stockton
3.84 AVERAGE
Shreve Stockton's book, which followed her "Daily Coyote" blog, tells the story of how she came to raise Charlie, an orphaned coyote her boyfriend brought home to her. She describes the difficult of raising a hated wild animal, including her fear for his safety (for in Wyoming, coyotes are the enemy), and her challenges with remaining the Alpha in their little pack.
I wanted to love this book, I really did. It's the wanting that made me give it three stars. Well, that and the photos. Stockton includes lovely photos of Charlie that she's taken herself, and I found myself looking forward to seeing each one. But the writing is unremarkable, and the book is frequently boring, particularly when she describes her relationship with her boyfriend, an agent for the Department of Natural Resources (I believe; it's been awhile), who shoots coyotes for a living. He was taciturn, mostly shut off, in large part due to the loss of a daughter due to an accident. This part of his story, no doubt, is very sad, but Stockton lacks the writing skills to truly communicate his loss, making him difficult to understand. She would have been better off leaving that part out and focusing on her relationship with Charlie.
Would I recommend this book? Not as a purchase. Check it out from the library if you're curious. Or just go online and look for her blog, where you'll get to see some great photos of Charlie. That's the best part of the book, anyway.
I wanted to love this book, I really did. It's the wanting that made me give it three stars. Well, that and the photos. Stockton includes lovely photos of Charlie that she's taken herself, and I found myself looking forward to seeing each one. But the writing is unremarkable, and the book is frequently boring, particularly when she describes her relationship with her boyfriend, an agent for the Department of Natural Resources (I believe; it's been awhile), who shoots coyotes for a living. He was taciturn, mostly shut off, in large part due to the loss of a daughter due to an accident. This part of his story, no doubt, is very sad, but Stockton lacks the writing skills to truly communicate his loss, making him difficult to understand. She would have been better off leaving that part out and focusing on her relationship with Charlie.
Would I recommend this book? Not as a purchase. Check it out from the library if you're curious. Or just go online and look for her blog, where you'll get to see some great photos of Charlie. That's the best part of the book, anyway.
If you can get past the hypocrisy & double talk, it's mildly entertaining.
I bought this book for a friend's Christmas present, but since we still have not been able to visit each other it shall sit on my shelf a while longer, so, why not! (She won't mind.)
I am giving this book one whole extra star just for wish-fulfillment appreciation. I really do appreciate it. I am also recommending that everyone who lives or has lived in New York City read the first chapter or two of this book. It's not that the rest of it isn't interesting too, but I was so surprised by the setup to the main subject of the book. The way she describes her prior life in NYC, deciding to leave it for its opposite on a whim, and what changes it makes to a person, is just really accurate. You can tell she really has been one of us, and has found the other side of the coin that we often wonder about. Her willingness to strike out and perform tasks and jobs and bonds she's never been near before is as much a perfect wish-fulfillment story as when you are having the kind of day where you are saying, "I hate everything, I am going to go live in a cabin with a coyote." (That is all of us, right? We can admit it.)
So you get a little memoir-type picture of who she is and what she's caring about -- the parts about her relationship aren't necessarily riveting, but it's nice knowing what means something to her in the context of all this. The coyote stuff! Because mostly, there's a bunch of stories about what it is like to have a coyote puppy, what she improvises to make this part of her life, and why she loves it and makes it work. I was surprised and interested that this also isn't just wish-fulfillment; the parts about dealing with unexpected aggression and coyote communication errors are intense. (To prove, in fact, we don't all necessarily want this to really happen. Well kind of.)
Some parts of the narrative are dull -- it is boring to me to read a book by a blogger who then has to talk about how they started the blog and found an audience. I guess they're obligated to explain this part of the story, but obviously it's an unsurprising part. Some other parts were unexpectedly strong, though -- in characterizing her setting, it made an impact to learn some of the threads of what it actually meant, in her new environment and society, to accept an animal for a pet that your neighbors expect you to want to kill. The familiarity of animals like coyotes in the places where they actually are makes them an unpopular pest; they are not romanticized when they are actually messing up your life. So her connection both to the wild animal and the meaning of the new place is a good theme, part of the theme in the beginning about her move, crossing boundaries.
It can be nice to see idealism work once in a while.
I am giving this book one whole extra star just for wish-fulfillment appreciation. I really do appreciate it. I am also recommending that everyone who lives or has lived in New York City read the first chapter or two of this book. It's not that the rest of it isn't interesting too, but I was so surprised by the setup to the main subject of the book. The way she describes her prior life in NYC, deciding to leave it for its opposite on a whim, and what changes it makes to a person, is just really accurate. You can tell she really has been one of us, and has found the other side of the coin that we often wonder about. Her willingness to strike out and perform tasks and jobs and bonds she's never been near before is as much a perfect wish-fulfillment story as when you are having the kind of day where you are saying, "I hate everything, I am going to go live in a cabin with a coyote." (That is all of us, right? We can admit it.)
So you get a little memoir-type picture of who she is and what she's caring about -- the parts about her relationship aren't necessarily riveting, but it's nice knowing what means something to her in the context of all this. The coyote stuff! Because mostly, there's a bunch of stories about what it is like to have a coyote puppy, what she improvises to make this part of her life, and why she loves it and makes it work. I was surprised and interested that this also isn't just wish-fulfillment; the parts about dealing with unexpected aggression and coyote communication errors are intense. (To prove, in fact, we don't all necessarily want this to really happen. Well kind of.)
Some parts of the narrative are dull -- it is boring to me to read a book by a blogger who then has to talk about how they started the blog and found an audience. I guess they're obligated to explain this part of the story, but obviously it's an unsurprising part. Some other parts were unexpectedly strong, though -- in characterizing her setting, it made an impact to learn some of the threads of what it actually meant, in her new environment and society, to accept an animal for a pet that your neighbors expect you to want to kill. The familiarity of animals like coyotes in the places where they actually are makes them an unpopular pest; they are not romanticized when they are actually messing up your life. So her connection both to the wild animal and the meaning of the new place is a good theme, part of the theme in the beginning about her move, crossing boundaries.
It can be nice to see idealism work once in a while.
adventurous
emotional
inspiring
medium-paced
adventurous
funny
lighthearted
fast-paced
I tend to avoid books where a non-human is a central character, but this was a great exception. It is a love story of sorts, but it is way more than that. It is a memoir, a series of essays on animal behavior, an adventure story.
The plot follows the author, cooly named Shreve, who somewhat impulsively moves to a town in Wyoming from the coast. She has only been to Wyoming once before, but fell in love with the land of big sky. She is not as flaky as this sounds. In fact, she seems focused and intense.
Before the focus of the book shifts to her becoming care giver to a coyote pup, there is an enjoyable recounting of her settling in. She is an oddity in this very conservative region. She is kind of a hippy. She believes in open communication and self-agency, spirits, and energy.
She ends up meeting a local dude, and they hook up, eventually semi-living together. Mike is somewhat damaged, haunted by loss. He complains a lot and sounds like a real pill, but she paints it all with a light stroke. I really wanted a detailed story of that love affair, including sex scenes, but don’t let the new age stuff fool you, Shreve is like Julia Roberts, no nude scenes. Mike does take an outside shower here and there, so there is that.
The star of the show is Charlie, a newborn coyote pup that Mike unloads on her. Ms. Author nurtures him from something smaller than her cat to a full grown big boy (it takes four hours of walking a day to keep him healthy). As he grows, she needs to figure out how to train him. This is exciting and terrifying. I was cheering her along. It takes quite a while, but she is extraordinarily committed and eventually establishes “active alpha” status. The human eventually masters the beast. The woman castrates the male. Powerful themes if you want to go down that road, which I do.
Another interesting piece of this book is the coyote as a persecuted species. In fact, boyfriend Mike earns a living shooting them from a helicopter as a U.S. government employee. People kill coyote as a courtesy in this cattle raising part of the world, to protect our hamburgers.
There are a few times when I get turned off such as the freaky canoodling of Shreve and Charlie. But just because I don’t want to mouth kiss a canine doesn’t mean no one else should. Charlie also liked to hide Elk meat in the corners of her cabin, gross. Otherwise, I was sad that it ended, and might even read it again.
The plot follows the author, cooly named Shreve, who somewhat impulsively moves to a town in Wyoming from the coast. She has only been to Wyoming once before, but fell in love with the land of big sky. She is not as flaky as this sounds. In fact, she seems focused and intense.
Before the focus of the book shifts to her becoming care giver to a coyote pup, there is an enjoyable recounting of her settling in. She is an oddity in this very conservative region. She is kind of a hippy. She believes in open communication and self-agency, spirits, and energy.
She ends up meeting a local dude, and they hook up, eventually semi-living together. Mike is somewhat damaged, haunted by loss. He complains a lot and sounds like a real pill, but she paints it all with a light stroke. I really wanted a detailed story of that love affair, including sex scenes, but don’t let the new age stuff fool you, Shreve is like Julia Roberts, no nude scenes. Mike does take an outside shower here and there, so there is that.
The star of the show is Charlie, a newborn coyote pup that Mike unloads on her. Ms. Author nurtures him from something smaller than her cat to a full grown big boy (it takes four hours of walking a day to keep him healthy). As he grows, she needs to figure out how to train him. This is exciting and terrifying. I was cheering her along. It takes quite a while, but she is extraordinarily committed and eventually establishes “active alpha” status. The human eventually masters the beast. The woman castrates the male. Powerful themes if you want to go down that road, which I do.
Another interesting piece of this book is the coyote as a persecuted species. In fact, boyfriend Mike earns a living shooting them from a helicopter as a U.S. government employee. People kill coyote as a courtesy in this cattle raising part of the world, to protect our hamburgers.
There are a few times when I get turned off such as the freaky canoodling of Shreve and Charlie. But just because I don’t want to mouth kiss a canine doesn’t mean no one else should. Charlie also liked to hide Elk meat in the corners of her cabin, gross. Otherwise, I was sad that it ended, and might even read it again.
I really thought I would love this story. I once had a little coydog that I loved very much. The beginning of this book held promise, but went downhill as I continued reading. The author's "training methods" are questionable at best. Then later in the book she decides to band this poor creature instead of taking him in to get neutered. I disagree vehemently with this decision. Having Charlie go through a short time of discomfort by being at the vet and then a few days of recovery are much more humane than banding and having him go through numerous weeks of discomfort. She also refers to this process as 'natural' and there is nothing natural about it as a biologist. The way she treated Mike I also found deplorable, and I think she was often very cold and downright cruel at time. However, my disagreements with this author aside I do admire that fact that she was willing to change her whole life to accommodate this coyote.
This was an amazing story with so many layers. The first year of Charlie's life with Shreve is one of beauty, joy, wonder, fear and growth. Shreve's courage to always look within herself for solutions, not to abandon hope, not to blame the coyote, to have that deep belief that there was wisdom to be learned and a solution to be found. Lessons we can all put into practice.
This was also a story of survival off the land, so very different from city life, which is how Shreve grew up. A wonderful descriptive journey of her own adaptations to living more simply, being dependent on herself for even the most basic of things, finding peace and a sense of home in this way of life.
I know I could read this book again and again and gain new insights each time. This is definitely a book that goes on my special shelf.
This was also a story of survival off the land, so very different from city life, which is how Shreve grew up. A wonderful descriptive journey of her own adaptations to living more simply, being dependent on herself for even the most basic of things, finding peace and a sense of home in this way of life.
I know I could read this book again and again and gain new insights each time. This is definitely a book that goes on my special shelf.
I really admire Shreve's courage and desire to live a different kind of lifestyle then most of mainstream America. This book is a great read and comes across as an honest portrayl of one women's desires to move out west and live a life that is both true to herself and right for her coyote puppy. I love the pictures and each stories whether good or difficult made me year for a lifestyle similar to Shreve's.
I love this book! So fascinating to learn more about coyote and the human animal relationship.