Extras

"This story of a beagle's courage in the face of a wretched past and the unexpected love and care of her compassionate human companion kept me reading late into the night. Bea is unforgettable. Her story will touch your heart." --Mary Tyler Moore

“We love all our pets but there is always that “special” one from whom we learn so much and whose influence lasts a lifetime. Bea is such a one. A lovely story.”  --Betty White

“This moving and extraordinary story truly needed to be told. I say “Brava!” for caring individuals like Kristen von Kreisler.” --Rue McClanahan

While out for an evening walk, Kristin von Kreisler discovered a terrified, emaciated beagle on the side of the road.  She rescued the dog, thinking she would return it to its home—but soon learned that “home” meant an animal research laboratory.  Unwilling to subject the beagle to such a fate, von Kreisler took her in and named her Bea.  “I did not know then that I had years of worry ahead of me—difficult, yet supremely rewarding years,” she writes. “Our new houseguest was going to change my life.”

So begins FOR BEA (a Tarcher/Putnam hardcover, May 1, 2003), the account of a mute, pathologically fearful, and physically damaged little dog who became a diva.  Accustomed to sharing her life with animals who reciprocate her love, it was difficult at first for von Kreisler to understand a beagle who shivered with anxiety around strangers, had no comprehension of the concept of play, and, worst of all, rebuffed her every kind overture.  But Bea, it turned out, was a beagle of many talents. Over time, she drew on a bedrock of inner courage to find her bark and her spirit.  And once Bea was freed from the haunts of her past, von Kreisler says, “she entered rooms with the confidence of a model swishing her skirts on a Paris runway.”

Bea was not the only one to be transformed.  From knowing her, von Kreisler herself, always an animal lover, became a determined animal-welfare advocate.  In a postscript to the book she lays out her strongly-held belief:  While we work for the day when no animal will ever find its way to a research facility, we have an obligation to treat lab animals with the respect that Bea clearly did not get in her early years.  In an appendix, von Kreisler offers suggestions for what even ordinary people can do to help improve lab animals’ lives.

With a foreword by Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson (author of When Elephants Weep and The Nine Emotional Lives of Cats), FOR BEA is the charming tale of an unforgettable canine heroine and the human she inspired with her ability to overcome past grief and live utterly in the present.  But it’s also a story that has a crucial underlying message:  A lab animal is no different from any beloved companion animal – and just as needy of our kindness.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Kristin von Kreisler is the author of Beauty in the Beasts and The Compassion of Animals as well as articles for publications including Parade, Reader’s Digest, The Washington Post, and the Los Angeles Times.  She is a member of the heroic pet committee of the North Shore Animal League, co-chairs a national campaign for In Defense of Animals, and works for the Pain and Distress Initiative of the Humane Society of the U.S.  She lives in Mill Valley, California, and on Bainbridge Island, Washington.