Puppies for Dummies
Product Description
Arguably, there is no animal in the world that can offer you the amount of unconditional devotion as a dog. The period of puppyhood can be the toughest and most delightful era in your dog’s life. Each puppy, as it grows into doghood, faces – and sees – the world in different and unique ways. Some puppies thrive on human interaction; others prefer an independent lifestyle. Some like the general mayhem that small children make; others find the commotion less thrilling. Your puppy will grow up to be your friend, keeper, and voice. Puppies For Dummies is for anyone interested in exploring this momentous era in a dog’s life. Whether you already have a puppy curled at your feet (or chewing at your … More >>
Tagged with: Dummies • Puppies
Filed under: Training a Puppy
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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 weep 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: 2 / 5
When I adopted my puppy, this book was recommended to me. I dutifully went out and bought it. As I was reading it, it had many suggestions for what you should do but no tangible examples of implementing those suggestions. For example, they might say “don’t hit your puppy with a rolled up newspaper” but they don’t necessarily give you a reasonable alternative. I believe this to be more of a function of the editing by the “dummies” staff than a reflection on the author. In what I can only interpret as his own editorial comment on the book, my puppy proceeded to pee on this book — needless to say, after that we threw it out.
I went back to the bookstore and picked up:
“You and Your Puppy” by James DeBitetto, Sarah Hodgson
Sarah Hodgson is the author of this puppy book but somehow, with the addition of James DeBitetto, there are much more real-world suggestions for how to train your puppy. Many of the passages are word for word the same as the dummies book. But, instead of having just one paragraph about a topic, they expand on it and give you additional detail so that you can translate their “theory” into practice.
In small — the Puppies for Dummies is not really very excellent for people who are truly interested in learning a humane and positive way to raise their puppy. It is basically the USA Today of puppy books — just scratching the surface without providing any meaningful information.
Rating: 1 / 5
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 Excellent owners, fantastic 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. Reckon of yourself more highly and don’t get a dummy book.
Rating: 1 / 5
Although the more general aspects of this book are excellent (how to choose a puppy, how and when to start training etc.), I found some of the author’s suggestions really made the training process more hard, 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 excellent 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 quicker he picked things up once I had been shown a different way of doing things in obedience class.
Rating: 2 / 5
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: 3 / 5