THE SOUL OF A HORSE: Life Lessons from the Herd

We spend an enormous amount of time, energy, and money in this country making sure that tigers, lions, elephants and the like have domestic environments like those they'd have in the wild. But, genetically, the horse is every bit as much a wild animal as the creatures of the jungle.

My name is Joe Camp, creator of the floppy-eared superstar Benji. I've spent most of my life trying to lure you into the heart and soul of a dog. Now with my new book I'm trying to lure you into the heart and soul of a horse because it is there that I began to understand that there is something amiss with the traditional thinking about horses. It all began when I received a surprise birthday gift from my wife Kathleen.

As complete neophytes, without a clue, we stumbled head first into what turned out to be a very enigmatic world of horses, navigating unexpected, uncharted, and often controversial territory. The result is THE SOUL OF A HORSE: Life Lessons from the Herd (Random House/Harmony; On-sale April 29, 2008 in hardcover), a book that we hope will not only entertain you but change the way you think about horses. We're told it's an engaging, emotional and often humorous book, but we'd like to think it's also an important book about our discovery of the need for a complete makeover for the horse and the way we care for and relate to this majestic creature who has survived on the planet without humans for fifty-five million years.

When a new foal is born it is genetically encoded to be living in the wild, a prey animal meant to travel ten to twenty miles a day on unshod feet, eating small amounts around the clock, avoiding predators, and living with the family herd for safety. Yet the majority of domestic horses are stabled alone, stand in one place around the clock, wear metal shoes, and are fed twice a day from a trough in a box stall. None of that seemed to make sense to us. We were asking a lot of questions and getting a lot of answers that didn't compute. The more digging we did, the less sense any of it made. When logic was missing we dug ever deeper, ultimately discovering that this so-called traditional kind of horse care can actually cut a domestic horse's life in half. And we discovered that relationship with a horse begins with choice. The horse's choice.

Monty Roberts, New York Times #1 best-selling author of THE MAN WHO LISTENS TO HORSES says: "Joe Camp is a natural when it comes to understanding how animals tick and a genius at telling us their story. THE SOUL OF A HORSE is a must read for those who love animals of any species."

We hope you will help us make a difference by passing the word about the book along to your friends and associates. According recording artist Susan Sherlock, "Yes, it's a "horse" book... but really, it's so much more. This book is about relationships, choices, acceptance, trust, compromise, and love. Take the horses out of it, if you wish, and it still tells stories of life lessons and teaches that the quality of life is often in the choices we make."

At Amazon.com, just after the pre-order page went up a few weeks ago, the book began ranked at something well over one million. A few days ago it was down to 3812. The more this happens, the more Amazon will pay attention, and the more good news gets back to the publisher, and the whole thing begins to snowball. At this stage it's truly one of those times when a very few people can make a very big difference for horses everywhere. So we're asking everyone who can to pre-order a book and ask your friends and their friends to do the same. Amazon is offering a pre-order price that is one-third off the publication day price. And Katheen and I are offering a signed and personally inscribed bookplate to anyone who pre-orders. Instructions to receive the bookplate are on our website page linked below:

To pre-order THE SOUL OF A HORSE at Amazon.com or your favorite bookseller and receive a personally inscribed bookplate, visit: http://www.thesoulofahorse.com/Pre-Order-Reviews.htm

To read early reviews: http://www.thesoulofahorse.com/PraiseForTSOAH.htm

For more about our efforts and passions for animals go to: http://www.thesoulofahorse.com/PressRoom.htm

Thank you so very, very much.