Decision At Doona: Anne McCaffrey

Book I of Doona. Doona was a jewel of a planet - a pastoral paradise with rivers and lakes, mountains and seas. The Hrubbans needed it to revitalise their decadent race, to give them back something of the old pioneering spirit. The Terrans needed it as an overspill from the hysterical over-crowding of Earth. So they both sent a colonising party - and they both began to think of Doona as home. And then one day the smooth-skinned, two-legged mammal known as Man came face-to-face with the furry, four-pawed mammal known as Hrubban...