Bedlam Farm Books

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New York Times bestselling author Jon Katz and his animals on Bedlam Farm have taken us to some remarkable places. This October, Katz returns with a dramatic dog adventure to the edges of life in IZZY & LENORE: Two Dogs, An Unexpected Journey, and Me (Villard Books Hardcover; On Sale Date: September 23, 2008). In IZZY & LENORE, Katz examines two of his exceptional dogs and the mysterious power they have in their interactions with the humans around them. One healed his own soul and the other brought Jon into some of the most gratifying work of his life, that of a hospice volunteer in Washington County in Upstate New York.

Izzy was an abandoned three-year-old border collie whose sketchy past and nervous disposition reminded Katz of the dogs he has been closest to over his life. As Katz taught this newest denizen of his animal menagerie to calm down and embrace the rhythm of life on Bedlam Farm, Izzy exhibited an uncanny sensitivity to, and tenderness toward, humans who were troubled, ailing, or ill. It was Izzy’s special receptiveness that led Katz to a pursuit he’d often pondered but never seriously considered: volunteer hospice work. Katz and Izzy trained for months and learned to read each instinctively. When it came time to put the training into action, Katz feared he might have made a mistake. Would hospice work be too intense for both of them? In fact, Izzy’s gift brought Katz to a series of uplifting emotional experiences that led him off the farm, into new, extraordinary friendships, and showed him what dogs can do for people at our neediest and most intimate times.

Lenore was a glossy jet-black Labrador Retriever puppy known as the “Hound of Love,” whose arrival heralded the healing of Katz’s own troubled soul. As she grew to adulthood and found her place on the farm and in the company of his spirited border collies, her calm demeanor and seemingly boundless capacity for love reminded Katz why he’d come to the farm in the first place—and why he’d devoted so much of his life to working with dogs. As Katz says, “Animals and people work best together when they lead us to people. Lenore, whose presence alone brightens every space she enters, brought me out of my own darkness and reconfirmed the importance animals have in all our lives.”

IZZY AND LENORE is a moving and inspiring story of love, compassion, and the incredibly rich and complex relationships between dogs and humans.

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Jon Katz is one of America’s best-loved dog writers, and his keen insights into the animal world have earned him the title of Squire of Bedlam Farm.  His new memoir DOG DAYS: Dispatches from Bedlam Farm  allows us to live our dreams of leaving the city for the country, and shares the unpredictable adventure of farm life. From little Jesus (the newborn donkey who becomes the farm mascot) to the surprisingly sociable steer Elvis (weighing in at 2,500 pounds) and his comparatively svelte sweetheart, Luna, the creatures at Bedlam Farm find new ways to challenge Katz, who writes, “The perfect life is like the perfect dog: Neither exists. And joy is a fraction of the experience of owning a farm.”

Riding herd on the entire place is Rose, the workaholic border collie. Not even Rupert, the ram, can intimidate her. As for Pearl and Clementine, the Labs, their work is chomping down food (however revolting), tearing through the woods, and finding laps to snuggle on. The sheep, the chickens, and the cat all contribute to the hum (and occasional roar) of Bedlam. So do the vet, the carpenter, and the animals’ tender-hearted nursemaid. Last but not least there’s Izzy, the abandoned border collie, who, if all goes well, may soon become a Bedlam star.

In spite of the aches and pains brought on by his demanding lifestyle and days when Bedlam Farm truly lives up to its name (like the day Elvis pulled the fence down), the author is sustained in all he does by his wife, Paula. And on timeless summer days and in punishing winter storms, he continues his meditation on what animals can selflessly teach us—and what we in turn owe to them.

With good neighbors, a beautiful landscape, and tales of true love thrown in, DOG DAYS gives us not only down-to-earth animal stories told in Katz’s inimitable style, but a rich portrait of the harmonious world that is Bedlam Farm.

“People who love dogs often talk about a ‘lifetime’ dog. I’d heard the phrase a dozen times before I came to recognize its significance. Lifetime dogs are dogs we love in especially powerful, sometimes inexplicable ways.” – Jon Katz

In this gripping and deeply touching book, bestselling author Jon Katz tells the story of his lifetime dog, Orson: a beautiful border collie–intense, smart, crazy, and unforgettable.

From the moment Katz and Orson meet, when the dog springs from his traveling crate at Newark airport and panics the baggage claim area, their relationship is deep, stormy, and loving. At two years old, Katz’s new companion is a great herder of school buses, a scholar of refrigerators, but a dud at herding sheep. Everything Katz attempts– obedience training, herding instruction, a new name, acupuncture, herb and alternative therapies–helps a little but not enough, and not for long. “Like all border collies and many dogs,” Katz writes, “he needed work. I didn’t realize for some time I was the work Orson would find.”

While Katz is trying to help his dog, Orson is helping him, shepherding him toward a new life on a two-hundred-year-old hillside farm in upstate New York. There, aided by good neighbors and a tolerant wife, hip-deep in sheep, chickens, donkeys, and more dogs, the man and his canine companion explore meadows, woods, and even stars, wade through snow, bask by a roaring wood stove, and struggle to keep faith with each other. There, with deep love, each embraces his unfolding destiny.

A Good Dog is a book to savor. Just as Orson was the author’s lifetime dog, his story is a lifetime treasure–poignant, timeless, and powerful.

“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

When Jon Katz adopted a border collie named Orson, his whole world changed. Gone were the two yellow Labs he wrote about in A Dog Year, as was the mountaintop cabin they loved. Katz moved into an old farmhouse on forty-two acres of pasture and woods with a menagerie: a ram named Nesbitt, fifteen ewes, a lonely donkey named Carol, a baby donkey named Fanny, and three border collies.

Training Orson was a demanding project. But a perceptive dog trainer and friend told Katz: “If you want to have a better dog, you will just have to be a better goddamned human.” It was a lesson Katz took to heart. He now sees his dogs as a reflection of his willingness to improve, as well as a critical reminder of his shortcomings. Katz shows us that dogs are often what we make them: They may have their own traits and personalities, but in the end, they are mirrors of our own lives–living, breathing testaments to our strengths and frustrations, our families and our pasts.

The Dogs of Bedlam Farm recounts a harrowing winter Katz spent on a remote, windswept hillside in upstate New York with a few life-saving friends, ugly ghosts from the past, and more livestock than any novice should attempt to manage. Heartwarming, and full of drama, insight, and hard-won wisdom, it is the story of his several dogs forced Katz to confront his sense of humanity, and how he learned the places a dog could lead him and the ways a doge could change him.

Sometimes, change comes on four legs.
In his popular and widely praised Running to the Mountain, Jon Katz wrote of the strength and support he found in the massive forms of his two yellow Labrador retrievers, Julius and Stanley. When the Labs were six and seven, a breeder who’d read his book contacted Katz to say she had a dog that was meant for him—a two-year-old border collie named Devon, well bred but high-strung and homeless. Katz already had a full canine complement—but, as he writes, “Change loves me. . . It comes in all forms. . . Sometimes, change comes on four legs.” Shortly thereafter he brought Devon home. A Dog Year shows how a man discovered much about himself through one dog (and then another), whose temperament seemed as different from his own as day from night. It is a story of trust and understanding, of life and death, of continuity and change. It is by turns insightful, hilarious, and deeply moving.

Other Books

Katz on Dogs: A Commonsense Guide to Training and Living with Dogs (2006)

The New Work of Dogs: Tending to Life, Love and Family (2004)

Geeks: How Two Lost Boys Rode the Internet out of Idaho (2001)

Running to the Mountain:
A Midlife Adventure (2000)

Coming in Spring 2008
Running to the Mountain:
A Midlife Adventure