Jon Katz Quotes

#1. There's a vulnerability about Rose, even a sweetness in her eyes, but there's no mistaking her priorities. Smart, tough, determined, she is essential, but rarely the dog that people melt over or want to take home. Yet she's a great dog.

Jon Katz

#2. When an animal dies, it gives you the chance to love another animal. That's an insightful and profound way to look at it.

Jon Katz

#3. Dog rescue remains a gamble, of course. For all the good will, hard work, and noble motivation, nobody can really predict with certainty how a traumatized, dislocated dog will respond in a new environment.

Jon Katz

#4. Goats are the cable talk show panelists of the animal world, ready at a moment's notice to interject, interrupt, and opine. They have something to say about everything, little of it complimentary. They are the most impertinent animals I have ever known.

Jon Katz

#5. There is no evidence that an animal can take on the sophisticated task of deciding to end his life and to communicate that decision to us.

Jon Katz

#6. I'm always happy when people choose to get another dog because it's a healthy and healing thing to do, and there are millions of them needing homes. But there is no single time frame to do it in because grieving is an intensely personal experience.

Jon Katz

#7. Dogs are blameless, devoid of calculation, neither blessed nor cursed with human motives. They can't really be held responsible for what they do. But we can."
--from The Dogs of Bedlam Farm

Jon Katz

#8. My goats are not contemplative, accepting, or introspective. They are the Greek chorus of my farm, sometimes of my life. They watch me closely and remind me that I am foolish.

Jon Katz

#9. Kids leave us and go off on their own lives. Family members tell us what they think of us. Animals can't do that. They really are blank canvases, and we can project anything we want onto them. So the relationship is very pure and simple.

Jon Katz

#10. Rose is undistractable, indefatigable, a problem solver.
Work is her essence, her animating spirit, and the core of her impact on me. Her dedication to it helps make my life possible, connects the two of us in this powerful way.

Jon Katz

#11. There is no evidence that dogs have the kind of complex emotional lives and value systems that we do. It's one reason why we love them so much, in fact. They are neither "good" nor "bad." They don't hold grudges, act in petty ways, or seek revenge. They read our moods, but not our minds.

Jon Katz

#12. I think of animals more as spirits that come and go. They enter our lives at a particular time and they leave at a particular time. The whole glorious history of animals with people is about joy and connection. It's about loving this creature and letting this creature love you.

Jon Katz

#13. Dogs and other animals - goats, donkeys, cows, a grumpy rooster - continue to change my writing life.

Jon Katz

#14. Actual evil probably requires much more creativity, passion, and political ideology than anyone at or near the top of Microsoft seems to possess.

Jon Katz

#15. Lifetime dogs intersect with our lives with particular impact; they're dogs we love in especially powerful, sometimes inexplicable, ways.

Jon Katz

#16. When you write about animals, of course, you are really writing about the people who love and live with them. Animals mirror and reveal us. Dogs in particular are often reflections of us, and what we need them to be.

Jon Katz

#17. Americans have an extraordinary love-hate relationship with the rich culture they've created. They buy, watch and read it even as they ban, block and condemn it.

Jon Katz

#18. Dogs are voiceless ... a critical part of having dogs is emotional responsibility: learning how to understand them and, when necessary, to speak and act on their behalf.

Jon Katz

#19. The relationship between a dog and a human is always complicated. The two know each other in a way nobody else quite understands, a connection shrouded in personal history, temperament, experience, instinct, and love.

Jon Katz

#20. When I wrote about media and technology, I had a lot of lonely, even intimate book talks. Since writing about dogs, I have a lot of company at book signings.

Jon Katz

#21. Owners who buy aggressive dogs for security may be kidding themselves: The chances that the victim of a fatal dog attack will be a burglar or human attacker are 1-in-177. The odds that the victim will be a child are 7-in-10.

Jon Katz

#22. Taking responsibility and having faith in your own judgment will help you make good choices and decisions at the end of your pet's life.

Jon Katz

#23. Dogs are not 'people' of another species. They are another species. To train and care for them properly, to show them how to live in our complex world, requires first and foremost that we understand that.

Jon Katz

#24. I am lucky in marriage and in dogs.

Jon Katz

#25. We are human, and we suffer, and unlike the animals on the farm, we are self-aware, and we know that we suffer, and it doesn't hurt more or less if God caused it or could stop it, at least for me. I am definitely of the school that believes God has bigger stuff to worry about than me.

Jon Katz

#26. Dogs are born knowing exactly what they want to do: eat, scratch, roll in disgusting stuff, sniff and squabble with other dogs, roam, sleep, have sex. Little of this is what we want them to do, of course. We ask them to sit, stay, smell peasant, practice abstinence, and be accommodating.

Jon Katz

#27. Most Americans acquire dogs impulsively and for dubious reasons: as a Christmas gift for the kids. Because they saw one in a movie. To match the new living-room furniture. Because they moved to the suburbs and see a dog as part of the package.

Jon Katz

#28. Personally, I don't want to own a dog that inspires fear. I choose my dogs carefully, have their temperaments observed and evaluated, train and socialize them day after day. Yet I know any dog can be unpredictable.

Jon Katz

#29. A border collie named Orson inspired me to buy a 110-acre farm with four barns and a sheep. That led to a series of books about Bedlam Farm and about dogs, rural life, lambing and herding sheep.

Jon Katz

#30. Some people say that their pets will tell them when it's time to go. I don't believe that. No animal of mine has ever told me he was ready to die. I wish it were that simple. Dogs can communicate, but they cannot talk, nor do they think in our language or on our terms.

Jon Katz

#31. My beloved dog defied treatment from the best and most expensive veterinarians, holistic practitioners, trainers, and animal communicators. He was simply beyond my ability to repair or control.

Jon Katz

#32. If you're going to love animals and have a life with them, the odds are you're going to lose them. It's helpful when you get a dog to accept the fact that this dog is not going to be with you your whole life.

Jon Katz

#33. Being able to use the word "geek" has helped me a lot to define myself, but not as a mold for me to fit myself into, as a template to help accentuate my differences.

Jon Katz

#34. That, even with imperfect masters, the canine soul is pure, loyal, and dependable.

Jon Katz

#35. Owners sometimes think their dogs have already suffered so much that they couldn't possibly inflict any more criticism. Yet it's that very firm, effective training that would make those dogs happier and more secure.

Jon Katz

#36. I owe my dogs much - more than I can say - but they are not my 'companions' - as if we voluntarily chose to hang out together but none of us has authority over the others. I bought and/or acquired them. I own them. I am profoundly responsible for their care and well being.

Jon Katz

#37. It is possible to take something beautiful and lasting out of the heart-wrenching experience of seeing the animal you love move inexorably toward death.

Jon Katz