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Most of what hurts an animal at home is ordinary and already in the room: a houseplant, a bowl of grapes, a window left open in July, a cleaning product used exactly the way its label describes. None of it looks like a hazard until you know, which is most of what this section is for.

The safety pieces name the specific plant, the specific food and the specific dose wherever a source states one, and leave the field empty where nobody does. A list of everything that might conceivably be dangerous is no more use than no list at all.

The rest is settling in — the first week with a puppy or a kitten, the pet-proofing that happens before either arrives, and the emergencies where the useful thing is to have decided in advance rather than to be reading about it at the time.

The emergencies are the part worth reading before you need them. Heatstroke, a swallowed plant, an animal that has gone missing: each has a first hour that decides how it ends, and none of them leaves time to start reading.