The Daily Coyote

Cassandra Campbell manages the difficult task of voicing the concept of cognitive dissonance as she narrates Stockton's simultaneous love affairs with a pet coyote, "Charlie," and a rancher who kills coyotes for a living. Animal lovers will be befuddled by Stockton's tale. It's simultaneously a cuddly diary about a coyote pup and a glowing endorsement of ranching culture's wholesale slaughter of coyotes. Campbell voices Stockton's popular blog-turned-book with a detached Western romanticization that reflects the author's inability to extend her love and admiration for Charlie to the wild coyotes that are gassed, trapped, and shot daily by her lover. While Stockton's blog succeeds online, THE DAILY COYOTE doesn't translate well into a full-length audiobook, partly due to the absence of Stockton's cute photographs of Charlie. J.T. (c) AudioFile 2009, Portland, Maine

October 27, 2008
This moving account of writer/photographer Stockton’s first year with her pet coyote, Charlie, expands on her popular blog, the Daily Coyote, but newcomers and the author’s many fans will find that this memoir offers a complete—if not yet completed—story about love and life in a small Wyoming town. On a cross-country move from San Francisco to New York City in 2005, Stockton fell in love with the beauty of Wyoming’s Bighorn Mountains and decided to settle there. She found new roots and a new boyfriend, a government trapper whose job was to protect livestock by killing coyotes. When he finds an orphaned coyote pup, barely 10 days old, he gives it to Stockton, beginning an adventure that moves human and animal from a blissful open affection (the author’s photos of baby Charlie are as adorable as they are beautifully composed) through a period of reconsideration after Charlie bites her to a breakthrough realization that Charlie needed a much more structured “alpha” attitude from his owner. Stockton’s journey of sharing her life with a wild animal and providing training while respecting Charlie’s unique nature makes for a fascinating and rewarding read.