Illustrator Lili Chin became fascinated with dog behavior in 2008 after her Boston terrier, Boogie, bit their landlord and they almost got evicted.

Ordered by her landlord to get training for Boogie or else, Chin sought out animal behaviorists. Soon, she was using her drawing skills to collaborate with them on posters and pamphlets aimed at helping pet parents better understand their pets by reading their body language.

That ultimately led Chin to write the books “Doggie Language” (2020) and “Kitty Language” (2023). With whimsical illustrations that drew on her animation experience, she interpreted signs of distress, irritation, content or excitement in body movements such as a wagging tail or flattened ears.

The books have proved so popular that some pet trainers recommend them to clients to help make sense of a pet’s difficult behavior. Chin offers free downloads of certain infographics for noncommercial use.

Coming out this week, Chin’s third book, “Dogs of the World: A Gallery of Pups from Purebreds to Mutts,” is an ambitious attempt to introduce and illustrate every type of dog around the globe — more than 600 by her count.

It is one in a slew of new books about pets, many with charming illustrations that make them especially accessible. The recent “Medieval Cats,” for instance, by Catherine Nappington, features funny cat poems, sayings and drawings from the Middle Ages. “Ursula K. Le Guin’s Book of Cats,” due out this fall, pulls together poems, musings and sketches by the science fiction writer, who died in 2018.

Speaking by phone from Los Angeles, where she lives with her husband and two cats, Mambo and Shimmy, Chin said “Dogs of the World” was her most daunting project yet.

“I’m counting on pet owners to be interested and would be happy to get non-pet owners interested as well,” she said. “Even if we don’t have a dog, we are in contact with them all the time.”

People looking to adopt can also learn a lot.”