How to Be a Good Creature

Sy Montgomery is a naturalist and author who has spent decades writing about animals around the world. In this memoir, she reflects on 13 animals who served as her most important teachers, shaping her understanding of courage, love, grief, and what it means to live well. She frames her life as an ongoing effort to learn "how to be a good creature," guided not by human mentors but by animals with abilities that surpass human understanding.

Montgomery's first teacher was Molly, a Scottish terrier who arrived when Montgomery was three years old. Growing up as the daughter of an army general at Fort Hamilton in Brooklyn, New York, Montgomery was drawn to animals with an intensity that worried her socially ambitious mother. She preferred goldfish and a pet turtle to dolls and announced to her parents that she was really a horse, then later a dog. Montgomery reveals that something traumatic likely happened to her around age two: Her mother attributed Montgomery's failure to thrive to a rare illness, but an aunt suspected the child had been shaken or smothered during her mother's cocktail hour. Molly's arrival transformed Montgomery. The fierce, independent Scottie became her role model, and Montgomery spent hours studying Molly's heightened senses, nurturing fantasies of running away to learn the secrets of wild animals.

At 26, working as a science reporter for the New Jersey daily Courier-News, Montgomery traveled to Australia on a plane ticket from her retired father. She volunteered with Earthwatch, a nonprofit pairing laypeople with researchers, to study endangered wombats in South Australia. She worked so hard that the lead researcher, Dr. Pamela Parker, offered her free use of the camp. Montgomery quit her job and moved to a tent in the Outback for six months, leaving behind Howard Mansfield, a writer she loved. Three wild emus, large flightless birds native to Australia, became the focus of her research. Inspired by Jane Goodall, she stopped hiding from the birds and instead presented herself openly until they accepted her presence. She discovered that seeds germinated faster after passing through an emu's gut, and one evening, the emus allowed her to sit with them as they settled to sleep. The experience taught her that understanding any animal requires opening not only one's mind but also one's heart, a bond she traces back to Molly, who had died during Montgomery's junior year of high school. She left Australia knowing she would spend her life writing about animals.

Montgomery and Howard settled in New Hampshire, eventually buying a farmhouse on eight acres in the town of Hancock. Both built freelance writing careers and married on a friend's farm. Then everything collapsed: Their rented house went up for sale, a publisher withdrew Montgomery's first book contract, and her father was dying of lung cancer. In a letter sent after the wedding, her father had formally disowned her, objecting to Howard, who was Jewish, liberal, and middle class, qualities at odds with their wealthy, conservative, Methodist military family. Despite this, Montgomery was at her father's bedside when he died, though he never told her he forgave her.

On a dreary March day, the couple adopted a sickly, undersized piglet from farmer friends and named him Christopher Hogwood, after the conductor who founded the Academy of Ancient Music. Christopher healed Montgomery emotionally. Cheerful and communicative, he frequently broke out of his pen to visit neighbors, helping the shy Montgomery forge friendships. The family expanded with hens, a border collie named Tess adopted from local rescuer Evelyn Naglie, and two young sisters next door. By his fifth year, Christopher topped 700 pounds. Montgomery reflects that after her parents disowned her, the pig helped create a family made not from genes but from love.

A research trip to French Guiana introduced Montgomery to Clarabelle, a pinktoe tarantula that walked across her outstretched palm and filled her with tenderness rather than fear. On Christmas morning at the farm, an ermine, a weasel in its winter-white fur, killed one of her beloved hens. Rather than anger, Montgomery felt an unexpected connection to her mother, who had died of pancreatic cancer earlier that year. Her mother had grown up poor in rural Arkansas yet through sheer will transformed her life, becoming college valedictorian, working at the FBI, and marrying an army officer. The ermine's fierce vitality helped Montgomery see her mother's ferocity as the same force that drove both creatures to survive, flooding her heart with awe and forgiveness.

As Tess aged, losing her hearing, her balance, and her sight, Montgomery reversed their earlier roles. Where Tess had once guided Montgomery through moonless nights, catching an invisible Frisbee to compensate for human blindness, Montgomery now led Tess through the darkness. She describes this reversal as the most profound experience of grace she has known.

Christopher died in his sleep at 14. Tess, already 16 and failing, was euthanized a short season later. Montgomery sank into severe depression, her hair falling out and her brain malfunctioning. She made a private bargain: If she did not feel better by the time she finished writing a memoir about Christopher, she would end her pain with leftover medication from her mother's cancer treatment. She had one remaining obligation: a children's book about endangered Matschie's tree kangaroos, tree-dwelling marsupials studied by Dr. Lisa Dabek in Papua New Guinea's cloud forest. The grueling three-day hike to the 10,000-foot study site tested her with altitude sickness and hypothermia. On April 1, trackers located two tree kangaroos together, and for the first time in the study, an adult male was radio-collared. Lisa named the pair Christopher and Tess. Montgomery repeated their names like a mantra. The day the tree kangaroos were released into the forest, she felt set free as well.

A year and a half after Tess's death, Tess appeared to Montgomery in a dream, then was replaced by a different border collie with similar markings but no white ruff. Montgomery woke understanding that Tess had sent this dog to them. After failed attempts at other rescues, she called Evelyn, who had a female border collie, only the second she had received in 14 years. The dog, about five years old, had been forced to breed in winter and lost five of her eight puppies to the cold. They renamed her Sally. She was a relentless food thief and extravagantly affectionate. Montgomery reflects that the great souls who preceded Sally enlarged her heart, leaving a greater capacity for love.

Montgomery's friendship with Octavia, a giant Pacific octopus at the New England Aquarium, opened another frontier. Octavia, wild-caught and initially reluctant, eventually grew calm enough to play games Montgomery likens to patty cake. Then Octavia laid approximately 100,000 infertile eggs and devoted herself entirely to guarding them, never leaving even to eat. After 10 months, Octavia developed a severe eye infection and was moved behind the scenes. On a final visit, despite months without contact, Octavia floated to the surface and attached her suckers to Montgomery's skin before sinking back down. Montgomery reflects that the friendship showed her the world is far more vibrant and holy than she could ever imagine.

After Sally died of a brain tumor, Montgomery's veterinarian, Chuck DeVinne, called with news: A local breeder had a border collie puppy born with a blind eye, making him unsuitable for herding work. They named him Thurber, after the one-eyed cartoonist and essayist James Thurber. Unlike Tess and Sally, who both had separation anxiety rooted in early neglect, Thurber was confident and joyful from the start. His arrival allowed Montgomery and Howard to raise a puppy with all the nurturing their earlier dogs had lacked. Montgomery reflects that Thurber's blind eye, a genetic accident, was also the miracle that brought him to them, arriving during the one moment in her career when she had no deadlines and could devote months to a puppy. Among the truths he teaches her is this: Even when life looks hopeless, something wonderful may be right around the corner.