All creatures great and small wil lprobably be too slow but Herriot has a book of animal short stories for kids that are great.

Thornton burgess adventures of... series are great although skew a bit younger.

Tail of despereaux

^ my kid and I joke often that he’s going to end up living in the Canadian wilderness

Hatchet! Classic wilderness adventure story written to appeal to kids. My 9 year old has read it multiple times and I have vivid memories of my 4th grade teacher reading it aloud too. Gary Paulson has other good adventure stories but that’s the best of them.

My 9 year old who loved call of the wild was also really into Old Man and the Sea. He’s not a big reader in general but was reading parts of that to himself at age 8.

Little House in the Big Woods was a hit too.

Braveland series

Calpurnia Tate is great for a read aloud! Yes, is about a fictional girl set around 1900, but she loves animals and one of her brothers, who you see more in the second book, is even more animal obsessed. There's discussion of Charles Darwin and calpurnia's grandfather is a major character--war veteran turned naturalist. Animals include dogs, cats, horses, armadillos, birds, moths....

Anonymous wrote:If he loved White Fang, have you done The Call of the Wild yet?

Yes! A couple yrs ago and he LOVED it- we listening it it on audiobook and it was so good even for me as an adult that never read it. I fear I may lose my son to the remote Canadian wilderness one day.

If he loved White Fang, have you done The Call of the Wild yet?

^ you could have him listen to the audiobook while following along with the actual book.

At 9, my daughter read all 22 books of the wonderful Redwall series, by British seafarer and master storyteller Brian Jacques. They were written in the 80s and 90s, I believe. It’s set in a fantasy medieval animal world populated with the small denizens of a typical English countryside. The mice and hares live in Redwall Abbey, the stoats and weasels attempt to storm it on multiple occasions, and some heroic adventurers of the badger and squirrel variety swashbuckle their way to victory on various quests.

The audiobooks narrated by Jacques are even better (he spent a lot of time telling stories aloud) but the accents may be challenging.

Highly recommend!

My Side of the Mountain. Not about an animal but sounds like a book your DS would like based on your list.

Hatchet.

Incredible Journey

Maybe All Creatures Great and Small

Rikki-Tikki-Tavi
Black Beauty
The Black Stallion
Misty of Chincoteague
Old Yeller (ending is heartbreaking)

Athropomorphic:
Charlotte's Web
The Wind in the Willows
Ben and Me
Doctor Dolittle (outdated and fantasy)
Redwall (haven't read, but liked PBS animated version)

https://www.goodreads.com/list/tag/animals

Also: Just-So Stories

Redwall
Wind in the Willows

The Green Ember series (they're anthropomophic, but fit as really great adventures)
Cappyboppy (short)
Black Stallion series (Island Stallion was my favorite in fourth)
The Great Turkey Walk
Lassie Come Home
Soldier Bear
Summer of the Monkeys
Gentle Ben
Sled Dog School
Seaman : the dog who explored the West with Lewis & Clark
Marguerite Henry books
Chester and Gus
Avi's Poppy series (again, anthropmorphic but really great stories)

Have you already read Shiloh's Christmas? If not, do you celebrate Christmas? If you do, it would be very seasonal.

I need a another book to read aloud to my 9 y/o son-4th grade.

He has loved:

Where the Red Fern Grows
Owls in the Family
Call of the Wild
White Fang
Shiloh
Rats of Nihm
Roland Dahl books

He prefers that animal characters are actual animals and not anthropomorphic animals, but would be ok either way for a really great story. He likes adventure.