![\"Miriam](\"https:\/\/staging-live.lbpost.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/08\/Miriam_kissing_dog.JPG\")
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Photos courtesy of the Yarden family.<\/em><\/p>\n Miriam Yarden was one of the most extraordinary people I\u2019ve known.<\/p>\n Yarden was a mother, a grandmother and a great-grandmother. She was an author, a linguist and an intellect. She was a survivor, an educator, a scholar, a student and\u2014most noteworthy, especially in her strong opinion\u2014a fierce, tenacious champion of animals.<\/p>\n Yarden passed away on February 28, leaving an endowment of love, wisdom and education to everyone whose path she crossed.<\/p>\n \u201cShe\u2019s part of the view that I\u2019ll always have forever more about the importance of making a dog whole,\u201d said Deborah Turner, author of the Wheely Willy series.<\/p>\n Yarden was born on January 10, 1929, to Elisabeth and Alexander Miller, in Kapos Var, Hungary. The family narrowly escaped Nazi persecution before the occupation of Hungary in 1939, fleeing to Israel. Her beloved brother David lost his life during the War for Independence in Israel while heroically volunteering as a field medic, inspiring Yarden to go to England to train as a nurse to support the war effort and honor her brother\u2019s memory.<\/p>\n Yarden wed architect Urie Yarden and relocated with him to the United States in the 1950s. She gave birth to her daughter, Ann David, nicknamed Andy. Her family, along with Yarden\u2019s mother, subsequently relocated to Southern California, where her surviving brother, Michael, lived with his family.<\/p>\n Miriam Yarden (left) with granddaughter Kyla and daughter Andy.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n Even with a family and a demanding position at British Airways, where Yarden\u2019s fluency in Hungarian, Hebrew, English, French, and German made her an excellent choice to work with international clientele, Yarden never sat still. She seemed to have found a time warp that allowed her to quench what her daughter called \u201cher insatiable thirst for knowledge\u201d by studying child psychology, nursing, law, world languages, religion, science fiction and, prophetically, animal education.<\/p>\n After retiring, Yarden devoted her life and her relentless temperament to animals. She was co-founder of Long Beach\u2019s first dog park, Recreation Dog Park<\/a>\u00a0on Seventh Street and worked tirelessly to get it operative. Gary Hovanian remembers meeting Yarden at the park while he was walking his German shepherd, Mega, in the early \u201990s and was inspired to join the board of directors as a result.<\/p>\n \u201cI even met my wife, Becky, there\u2014she often refers to Miriam as her second mom,\u201d Hovanian said. \u201cI don\u2019t know if I could handle another mom, but I rest assured knowing that Miriam was there for me just as she was for all those that knew her.\u201d<\/p>\n Yarden shared her expertise in animal behavior in Hey Pup! Let’s Talk! Your Canine\u2019s Problems Solved<\/i> (Hauppage, New York: Barron’s Educational Series, 2000) and wrote pet-behavior-related material for School News Roll Call<\/i><\/a>. She was a contributing writer for Pulse<\/i>, the Southern California Veterinary Medical Association journal.<\/p>\n She was active in such organizations as the Southern California Veterinary Medical Association, the Animal Behavior Society, American Veterinarians for Israel (AVI), the Association of Pet Dog Trainers (APDT), and the Dog Writers Association of America. She served as behavior consultant to Orange County Animal Control and was particularly proud of the work she did consulting for the Long Beach Police K9 Officers Unit.<\/p>\n And she opened her own business\u2014Aurora Animal Behavior, which provided education, advice, and support for Southern California families for over 40 years. She\u2019d stress that she was an educator, not a therapist or a trainer. And she educated pet owners as much as she did the pets! She was successful in connecting with a network of professional veterinarians, many of whom recommended her to their patients as their number-one behavior consultant.<\/p>\n Yarden taught obedience classes at the pet-supply store Doggie in the Window, which Turner formerly owned, located on Anaheim Street and Belmont Avenue. Turner is an animal rescuer, and the ones she saved and continues to save had problems that were different from those of pets of responsible owners who\u2019d brought them in. Turner sees a lot of neglect and mistreatment in rescued pets; Yarden, she said, taught her what to do to get them on the road to adoptability.<\/p>\n \u201cShe helped make the animal whole again so the pet could live as an inside family member and not chained up outside or wandering the streets,\u201d Turner said. \u201cShe made you feel that even with a worst-case scenario, everything would be OK. People just accept bad behavior, she told me\u2014a lot of people start and don\u2019t go back again. Miriam\u2019s now a part of how I look at things now.\u201d<\/p>\n![\"Miriam](\"https:\/\/staging-live.lbpost.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/08\/Miriam_granddaughter_Andy_and_great-granddaughter_Kyla.jpg\")
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