Puppies for Dummies

Rating:
Summary: A solid reference for positive reinforcement training
Review: After getting a puppy in December, I picked up this book, hoping it would provide me with information on just what I needed to do to have a happy, healthy, well-trained dog. Happily, it does. Covering just about every aspect of dealing with a puppy, I've already started using some of the information in the book. The index is well organized as well, making it easy to look up information as necessary.

Now, if only the puppy were as user friendly! *grin*

Rating:
Summary: Much better books out there...
Review: Although the more general aspects of this book are good (how to choose a puppy, how and when to start training etc.), I found some of the author's suggestions actually made the training process more difficult, while others were outright questionable. Most of the elements she instructs (sit, down, stay) can be taught in much simpler ways. She spends too much time showing how to force your puppy into position, and any good dog trainer will tell you that puppies learn best and fastest when they figure out what you're asking on their own by luring with food etc. The author often suggests "hugging" as appropriate praise for a dog. While hugging is tolerated by many dogs, it is really considered quite rude in the dog world and isn't the best way to reinforce behavior.
She also relies on a lot of unnecessary equipment, such as the "teaching lead" which she invented and suggests using choke collars for all puppies. She also downplays the importance of other tactics, such as crate training and hand signals.
I started teaching my puppy at home using the methods described in the book and was amazed at how much faster he picked things up once I had been shown a different way of doing things in obedience class.

Rating:
Summary: Surprisingly good.
Review: I always approach the 'Dummies' series of books with some trepidation since I always expect them to be shallow and short on detail. Although true for some of their computing books, that's not the case here.

By coincidence, I came across this book as we were about to get a puppy ourselves. The most useful part is certainly about housetraining and then the stuff about properly looking after it so that it doesn't get instilled in bad habits.

I'm sure there are many other books on how to look after puppies. This one, I'm sure, is as good as any of them.

Rating:
Summary: Great for new owners
Review: I recommend this book for all new owners of dogs. Sarah explains everything simply and quickly with lots of humor. One lady told me she had no time to read a book, her elementary school daughter read the book first (and then she did).

Rating:
Summary: You can do better
Review: If you want a book that lays a guilt trip on you because you feed your puppy anything less than holistic food (that you can nibble on yourself in an emergency!)or because you allow your baby to play satanic tug-of-war or wrestling games, then you might like this book, but I doubt that you'll like your puppy. I'm a new puppy owner, and found much in here frustrating -- she doesn't talk much about crate training, for instance, because it makes her cry to see a dog in a cage, so she suggests you just tie your pup to yourself all day. Do yourself a favor: the information in How to Raise a Puppy You Can Live With is far more helpful and complete, and the writing in The Art of Raising a Puppy is far more readable and enlightening. I can't vouch for the other puppy books, but the two books I mentioned are worth your time and money; this one is, well, for dummies.

Rating:
Summary: Don't Even Bother...
Review: Okay, the book did have some pretty cool pointers and techniques. But the bottom line is...the lady tells you to ignore your puppy! Throughout the whole book all she talks about is ignore your puppy if he does this, ignore your puppy if he does that... C'mon! They need to feel some love too! It didn't go into detail about a single aspect of puppy training...well for the exeption of ignoring the pup that is! Basically, I feel like it was just a super long summary of raising an ignored puppy. Kind of sad actually...

Rating:
Summary: Good philosophy, but poorly organized.
Review: So you've decided to do it... You've decided to invite a unstoppable force of destruction into your home. Now all you have to do is find a way to lessen the chaos he or she will soon afflict.

I strongly recommend that anyone who is getting a puppy for the first time buy some sort of guide, however, I do not think this is the optimal one. Her philosophy of encouraging good behavior and just ignoring bad behavior I think is a good one...IF you have a dog with a reasonable temperment. On the other hand, if you have a real hell-hound it does not make much sense to turn you back as he happily eats your sofa. For smart, well-mannered breeds such as labs and goldens this book makes a lot of sense and I've had a lot of success with my dog. Unfourtantely, I cannot see it working with other "less agreeable" breeds.

The other thing I did not like about this book was its organization. Early in the book the author suggested that you have your dog "wait" while you open the dog. Several chapters later she introduces the "stay" command. Not only do you have two names for the same command, it makes more sense to teach him the basic command and then apply it to real life. Once I thought my dog to "stay," he immediately "stayed" while I opened the door. The good thing about this book though is how she organizes tricks by age.

Rating:
Summary: A little broader than I was looking for
Review: This book has a lot of information. I had already bought a puppy so the handful of chapters on deciding what type of dog to get, etc were not that useful to me. I was mainly looking for training information. There is training information in the book, but with all the other information it is not 100% convenient to get to. I am better off with the thin book I got from the "puppy kindegarden" class I enrolled in.

Rating:
Summary: not that helpful
Review: This book tends to over simplify everything. It speeds through many areas that you really need information about and trys to cover everything about puppies which is impossible.

If you want an overview book, pick it up. if your looking for targeted info on how to train your puppy move on.

Rating:
Summary: Useless!
Review: This book was truly useless. I read it and sold it because I knew that I would never want to look at it again. It's very elementary (hence the name, "For Dummies) and many sections are not very helpful when it comes to training. I had many questions after I read this book. Maybe I made the mistakes to read other books before this one which just blew me away so that when I read this book, I wasn't very impressed....In addition to the somewhat inferior content of the dummy book, it also lacked the many black and white photographs that I came to appreciate in the other readings which really drove home the points that these readings made (Pictures are worth a thousand words - when I see a "sit" sequence, that does a lot more for me than being told "pinch this, push there, and pull that). If you are on a budget and want to save money for dog toys, quality dog food etc for your puppy/dog, don't get this book. Spend your $ more wisely by getting Kilcommon's Good owners, great dogs. That book will be your friend and advisor, while this one will just end up on your book shelf, because it doesn't have the info you need on a daily basis to really help you and your dog. Think of yourself more highly and don't get a dummy book.