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Rating: 
Summary: Meet Mr Grizzly
Review: An outstanding and well written book. This book is an absolute must for those who love the great bear. Even though it relates to hunting of the grizzly, it offers terrific insight into the personality and intelligence of this great animal that once roamed so much of the American west.
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Summary: Western Americana Classic
Review: Meet Mr. Grizzly is a great classic of Western Americana. It is also the best book on training dogs and horses that I have ever read. Montague Stevens was an Englishman who took up ranching in New Mexico in the late 1800's. Among the problems he faced in learning the business of cattle and sheep ranching were Apaches, rustlers, and stock-killing grizzlies. While this book provides a colorful and highly literate description of ranch life on the western frontier, it focuses primarily on the methods he developed for hunting marauding bears. These, in turn, depended largely on his genius in training dogs and horses. For me, the most fascinating aspect of this book is the gentle creativity and the shrewd experimental approach he applied in working with his animals. His experiences are described with clarity, modesty, and humor.
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Summary: Grizzly Bears, Hounds and an iconoclastic Englishman
Review: Montague Stevens (the author) lightly mentions losing an arm in an accident and then never returns to the subject or the difficulties it must have caused as he chronicles his joyous escapades of hunting Grizzly bears near his ranch in New Mexico. This combined with his quote "Any good horse would be insulted by spurs" typifies his iconoclastic personality. This book (non fiction) is about a man (Stevens) who lived in the late 1800's and early 1900's on a ranch in New Mexico near the Arizona border. The author spent a good portion of his life hunting Grizzly's by what he terms the "hit and miss method" before learning to catch grizzly's with "reasonable certainty". Written with the feel of a "fireside chat", "Meet Mr. Grizzly" discusses Stevens' many adventures of hunting bears, training hounds, ranch life and interesting people he met along the way. His opportunities to hunt with Teddy Roosevelt and several prominent Military men of his day are intriguing. Stevens' unorthodox methods of training hounds to trail bears is both thought provoking and entertaining. Stevens understood dogs better than most dog trainers. He was able to train "liason dogs" to trail the hunting pack once the hunting pack were out of hearing. Stevens was an animal lover with a personality and demeanor similar to James Herriot. His analytical approach to problem solving allowed him to kindly train and own what was probably the worlds most successful pack of hunting dogs. His simple explanations of training methods make the reader feel as though anyone can expertly train dogs to do anything desired. This book is of wonderful value even if only for its historical content regarding a species (Ursus Horribilis - Grizzly Bear)that is now extirpated both in New Mexico and Arizona. An absolutely wonderful read for any hunter, biologist, historian or nature enthusiast.
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