Stephanie Howard-Smith and Philipp Schott DVM at Bark! Fest
Join these two authors to learn about the history of little dogs and of veterinary medicine at Bark! Fest, the book festival for animal lovers.
By Zazie Todd, PhD
This page contains affiliate links which means I may earn a commission on qualifying purchases at no cost to you.
Come and explore the history of our special relationship with pets.
Stephanie Howard-Smith’s Yap! A Short History of Small Dogs, is an entertaining history of our small canine companions, told in tender, engaging stories and featuring charming illustrations. Philipp Schott’s Heal the Beasts: A Jaunt Through the Curious History of the Veterinary Arts chronicles the history of veterinary medicine with an abundance of bizarre, funny, surprising, and heartwarming anecdotes.
September 25 at 1 pm Pacific (4 pm Eastern / 9 pm UK time)
This event is co-hosted by Zazie Todd and Kristi Benson.
Please support the authors by getting their books which are available wherever books are sold, including my Amazon store, from Bookshop, and most likely your local library too.
Yap! A Short History of Small Dogs by Stephanie Howard-Smith
Yap! A Short History of Small Dogs
Yap! Whether that sound suggests an irritating little runt of a dog or a sweet huggable bundle of canine fluff, you need to curl up with this captivating, informative, anecdotal history of our most diminutive four-legged friends. Dogs have been valued members of our societies for tens of thousands of years. They’ve guarded our homes, herded our flocks, hunted our food, and rescued us when we’ve needed help. But since ancient times, little terriers and lapdogs have enriched human lives in a different way. For millennia we’ve bred and kept them, both because they work for us and they bring us joy.
Animal historian Dr. Stephanie Howard-Smith tells the story of our smallest working canines and our beloved companions in a series of fun, lapdog-sized chapters, each of which focuses on a famous historical pooch. From the convents of medieval Europe, where nuns hid small dogs to be their faithful friends (despite the disapproval of male church leaders) to King Charles’s Spaniels, Queen Victoria’s Pekingese, Paris Hilton’s Chihuahua, and the pet influencers of twenty-first-century social media, Yap! follows the pawprints of the pups who set the mold for the dogs we share our homes with today.
Celebrating the petite companions with whom we’ve had our longest and closest relationship, from the lean mean little terriers who’ve kept our homes vermin-free, to our precious French Bulldogs and Toy Poodles, Terriers and Dachshunds, Pomeranians and Pugs, Shih Tzus and Spaniels, Howard-Smith presents a heartfelt ode to the yapping little dogs that have shaped our lives as much as we have shaped theirs: how they've evolved from working dogs to couch companions, providing the blueprint for the modern canine, and offered us companionship when we’ve most needed it.
Dr. Stephanie Howard-Smith is a dog lover and animal historian. She has a PhD on the cultural history of lapdogs in the eighteenth century and is the author of a number of academic essays on dogs in eighteenth-and nineteenth-century Britain. Her scholarly research has explored London’s first celebrity veterinarian, porcelain pugs, and dogs at home in Georgian England. Stephanie also writes about the history of pets for a popular readership and her debut book, Yap! A Short History of Small Dogs is due out in October 2026.
Heal the Beasts by Philipp Schott DVM
Heal the Beasts: A Jaunt Through the Curious History of the Veterinary Arts
Sharing the stories of 22 different animal healers and veterinarians from across eras and continents, Dr. Schott examines the always fascinating, often unexpected, and sometimes hilarious veterinary methods employed to treat all manner of creatures. From healing dogs and horses to gorillas and even dragons, at the heart lies the evolution of the human-animal bond, which has been more cyclical than linear.
James Herriot will be familiar to many people, but most of the other featured vets will be new. They range from Palakapya, who treated fighting elephants in India almost 3,000 years ago, to Dr. Louis Camuti, who had the first feline house call practice anywhere, tending to the cats of celebrities in mid-twentieth century Manhattan Whether you have a passion for animals, the history of the medical sciences, or just quirky history, this light-hearted exploration of the empathetic relationship between man and beast will entertain and delight.
Philipp Schott DVM was born in Germany and emigrated to Canada with his family when he was very young. He grew up in Saskatoon, ultimately studying veterinary medicine there. After graduation he moved to Winnipeg with his classmate and wife, Lorraine. He worked in the same small animal clinic until he retired from active veterinary practice in 2025.
His bestselling first book, The Accidental Veterinarian, was translated into five languages. He has published six more books since, in several different genres.
He and Lorraine live in a creaky old house on the river with two young adult children, and a cat who is simultaneously crazy and sweet.
As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. Disclosure: As a Bookshop affiliate I may earn a commission if you click through and make a purchase.
