Book Hound: Dogs in Black and White FetchDog FetchDog.com

What color is Your Dog? Train your dog based on his personality "color" by Joel Silverman

2009-06-29T00:00:00Z

REVIEW by Julia Szabo Kennel Club Books 160 pages$21.95 www.companionsforlife.net Veteran Holloywood dog trainer Joel Silverman is FetchDog's kind of guy: totally committed to shelter dogs and showing the world what shining stars these overlooked gems really...

Tales from a Dog Catcher by Lisa Duffy-Korpics

2009-06-18T00:00:00Z

REVIEW by Tanya Turgeon The Lyons Press, 2009252 pages$16.95 The words "dog catcher" conjure in my mind a cartoon stereotype of a middle-aged awkwardly burly mustachioed man in khaki shorts and matching button-down short-sleeved shirt wielding an oversized butterfly net....

Dog Man: An Uncommon Life on a Faraway Mountain by Martha Sherrill

2009-06-12T00:00:00Z

REVIEW by Tanya TurgeonThe Penguin Press, 2008237 pages$25.95 The economy has probably drained more than a few travel budgets this year. Fret not, there are other means of visiting faraway places. A mere $25.95 (or only $7.49 if you shop amazon.com) can get you a copy of Dog Man, which...

Dogology: What Your Relationship with Your Dog Reveals about You by Vicki Croke and Sarah Wilson

2009-06-08T00:00:00Z

REVIEW by Tanya Turgeon Rodale, 2008$17.95244 pages For centuries we have defined ourselves through the ancient craft of astrology. Well, it's time to move over moon and make way for the newest personality type movement, Dogology. I can't define it any better than the creators, so...

Dog by Matthew Van Fleet with Photography by Brian Stanton

2009-05-28T00:00:00Z

REVIEW by Tanya Turgeon Simon & Schuster/Paula Wiseman Book, 2007 20 pages$14.99 Summer vacation looms on the horizon bringing with it excursions aplenty. We all know dogs require special attention and care when traveling but they aren't the only ones. Young children can be as...

Alice Fantastic by Maggie Estep

2009-05-22T00:00:00Z

REVIEW by Tanya Turgeon Akashic Books, 2009250 pages$15.95 If you're heading out to the beach this summer and looking for a book to pass the time, skip the grocery store romance novel and instead lose yourself in Maggie Estep's newest work of fiction, Alice...

Reaching the Animal Mind: Clicker Training and What it Teaches us about all Animals by Karen Pryor

2009-05-14T00:00:00Z

Scribner, 2009258 pages$25.00 If you're the dog owner who bought a dog clicker when you first got your dog, tried it a few times, and then left it forgotten in a junk drawer (like I did); it's time to get it out, dust it off, and read Reaching the Animal Mind. It will...

The Dog Rules: 14 Secrets to Developing the Dog You Want

2009-05-03T00:00:00Z

by Kyra SundanceREVIEW by Tanya TurgeonFireside, 2009 239 Pages$24.99 So you could use some guidance in the dog training department. A book sounds like a good place to start, but with so many out there, where do you begin?Well, if you're a leader type looking for a natural approach,...

The Art of Racing in the Rain by Garth Stein

2009-04-24T00:00:00Z

The Art of Racing in the Rainby Garth SteinREVIEW by Tanya TurgeonHarperCollins, 2008321 pages$23.95 "April showers bring May flowers" certainly seems to be holding true this spring, at least in the New York City metro area. A damp day is a great reason to dive into a...

One Can Make a Difference: How Simple Actions Can Change the World by Ingrid E. Newkirk with Jane Ratcliffe

2009-04-17T00:00:00Z

One Can Make a Difference: How Simple Actions Can Change the Worldby Ingrid E. Newkirk with Jane RatcliffeREVIEW by Tanya TurgeonAdams Media, 2008256 pages$16.95 With Earth Day in the near future (April 22) and Obama's enthusiasm for community service in the White House, there is...

Organic Dog Biscuit Cookbook: from the Bubba Rose Biscuit Company by Jessica Disbrow Talley and Eric Talley

2009-04-10T00:00:00Z

REVIEW by Tanya TurgeonCedar Mill Press Book Publishers LLC, 2008221 pages$14.95 Continuing with the dog nutrition theme from the last review, here's another doggie cookbook worth looking at: Organic Dog Biscuit Cookbook. This one hails from the great borough of Brooklyn,...

The Natural Pet Food Cookbook: Healthful Recipes for Dogs and Cats

2009-04-03T00:00:00Z

by Wendy Nan Rees with Kevin Schlanger, DVMREVIEW by Tanya TurgeonWiley Publishing, Inc., 20008110 pages$14.99 With Fetchdog's current focus on dog nutrition there is nothing more appropriate to add to the Book Hound library than a cookbook. After all, good nutrition oft starts...

Dog Lost by Ingrid Lee

2009-03-30T00:00:00Z

REVIEW by Tanya TurgeonChicken House, 2008197 pages$16.99 A young boy named Mackenzie receives the best gift in his life when his father dumps a pit bull puppy on his bed. Cash quickly becomes Mackenzie's best friend in a life submersed in the struggles of a...

Dr. Kidd's Guide to Herbal Dog Care

2009-03-13T00:00:00Z

by Randy Kidd, D.V.M, Ph.D.Storey Publishing, 2000 203 pages$14.95As most pet owners know, the stress of having an ill or injured dog stems mainly from feelings of helplessness. At times like these, there is no greater gift than that of empowerment. Dr. Kidd's Guide to Herbal Dog Care...

Pretty Pet-Friendly: Easy Ways to Keep Spots Digs Stylish and Spotless

2009-03-05T00:00:00Z

By Julia SzaboWiley Publishing, Inc. 2009207 Pages $16.99My dear Book Hound followers (if indeed such loyalists exist), I must preface this review with honesty. For the first time, I am biased. My beloved pit bull, Elsie, is featured on page 60, where she appears to be joyfully being...

A Dog Named Christmas

2009-02-20T00:00:00Z

by Greg KincaidDoubleday, 2008148 pages$14.95Though the holiday season has come and gone, the lingering wintry weather provides a great excuse to curl up in a comfy chair with a mug of hot cocoa and this feel-good story. Within a few pages you will find yourself right back in the warm...

The Well-Adjusted Dog: Dr. Dodman's 7 Steps to Lifelong Health and Happiness for Your Best Friend

2009-02-13T00:00:00Z

by Dr. Nicholas H. DodmanHoughton Mifflin, 2008224 pages$24.00 "I know that I don't appreciate people sticking their hands in my food while I'm eating, and if a waiter did that to me in a restaurant, I would probably growl or snap at him," writes Dr. Nicholas H. Dodman....

Born Without a Tail

2008-11-06T00:00:00Z

Born Without a Tail by Cayr Ariel WulffBookSurge LLC, 176 pages, $12.95 Cayr Ariel Wulff's debut book opens with her four-year-old self's disheartening epiphany that she is lacking a tail. An animal lover since birth, Wulff doesn't allow this shortcoming to stop her from becoming...

Marley: A Dog Like No Other

2008-11-06T00:00:00Z

Marley: A Dog Like No Other by John GroganHarperEntertainment, 196 pages, $6.99The yellow labrador retriever we've all come to know and love, whose name graced the New York Times best seller list in 2005, is making his way to the big screen this December followed by the release of the Marley &...

Walking Ollie: Or, Winning the Love of a Difficult Dog

2008-11-06T00:00:00Z

Walking Ollie: Or, Winning the Love of a Difficult Dog by Stephen FosterPenguin Group, 177 pages, $12Strip away the sweet sentiment and polite political correctness of the typical dog story and what's left is this book, a hilarious account of English author Stephen Foster's first years with...

A Member of the Family: Cesar Millan's Guide to a Lifetime of Fulfillment with your Dog

2008-11-06T00:00:00Z

A Member of the Family: Cesar Millan's Guide to a Lifetime of Fulfillment with your Dog by Cesar MillanHarmony Books, 320 pages, $25.95 The word "family" generally refers to humans and "pack" to dogs, but according to Webster's New World Compact Office Dictionary, the two...

Pet Food Politics: The Chihuahua in the Coal Mine

2008-09-29T00:00:00Z

by Marion NestleUniversity of California Press, 219 pages, $18.95 The story unfolds like a "CSI" script, starring cost-cutting Chinese manufacturer Xuzhou Anying, who exports the toxic ingredients melamine and cyanuric acid to American pet food maker Menu Foods. Menu Foods, in turn,...

City Dog: A Novel

2008-09-25T00:00:00Z

by Alison PaceThe Berkeley Publishing Group, 288 pages, $14Alison Pace's novel centers around Amy, whose life has not gone in the direction she had planned. She's divorced, childless, and still hasn't written her "Great American Novel." On the positive side, Amy's bubbly West Highland...

Let's Have a Dog Party! 20 Tail-Wagging Celebrations to Share with Your Best Friend

2008-09-15T00:00:00Z

by Ingrid E. NewkirkAdams Media, 200 pages, $12.95If you're stuck in a rut of rewarding your dog with the basic toy, treat, walk around the block, and scratch behind the ear then Ingrid E. Newkirk has got news for you. This book is Newkirk's collection of recipes, crafts, puzzles, jokes, games,...

Bliss to You: Trixie's Guide to a Happy Life

2008-09-10T00:00:00Z

by Trixie Koontz, dog, as told to Dean KoontzHyperion, 158 pages, $16.95A lot of dog books rightfully conclude with the end of the dog's life, often leaving the reader with a pile of damp tissues. This one rejects such writing formulas by beginning with the end. Popular novelist Dean Koontz...

Charlie Wilson's War

2008-09-08T00:00:00Z

by George Crile Grove Press, 550 pages, $14.95 Thrust into the public spotlight by the film Charlie Wilson's War inspired, starring Tom Hanks, this book is a shocking revelation of previously covert historic events documented by former "60 Minutes" producer George Crile. The...

Paws and Smell the World: Unforgettable Moments with Our Best Friend

2008-09-05T00:00:00Z

by Dana Thomas EdD BowTie Press, 128 pages, $14.95 Seemingly old photographs, with their gray-yellow hue, of dogs in their daily lives adorn glossy pages, setting the perfect tone for a trip down memory lane. Yet don't be deceived by this classic hardcover coffee-table book packaging....

Dreaming in Libro: How a Good Dog Tamed a Bad Woman

2008-08-29T00:00:00Z

by Louise Bernikow Da Capo Press, 224 pages, $14 Behind every productive woman writer, I am tempted to say, there is a great dog. Louise Bernikow proves her own point through Dreaming in Libro, a memoir of her experiences as a New...

Schulz and Peanuts: A Biography

2008-08-27T00:00:00Z

by David MichaelisHarper, 672 pages, $34.95Around 1950,with a few strokes of his pen, Charles M. Schulz gave birth to America's most beloved cartoon canine, Snoopy. Now, over 50 years later, David Michaelis draws us through the intimate details of Schulz's life, which ended in 2000.A certain...

The Bully Breeds

2008-08-19T00:00:00Z

Kennel Club Classics, 200 pages, $39.95 The Bully Breeds - a.k.a. the American Pit Bull Terrier, American Staffordshire Terrier, Staffordshire Bull Terrier, Bull Terrier, and Miniature Bull Terrier - are some of the most misunderstood, maligned dogs in the world. And yet, while many...

Found Dogs: Tales of Strays Who Landed on Their Feet

2008-08-14T00:00:00Z

By Elise Lufkin The Lyons Press, 144 pages, $14.95 This gem of a book is a must for anyone who's ever considered dog adoption, or put off adopting again after the passing of a beloved pet. Too many dogs get lost in America, literally millions of them winding up dumped at animal...

Cancer Vixen: A True Story

2008-08-12T00:00:00Z

by Marisa Acocella MarchettoKnopf, 224 pages, $22 Marisa Acocella Marchetto is the brilliant cartoonist whose drawings appear in The New Yorker and Glamour, and whose blog postings appear in The Huffington Post. When she was diagnosed with cancer, she didn't take the news lying down. She got...

Walking in Circles Before Lying Down

2008-08-11T00:00:00Z

by Merrill Markoe Villard, 288 pages, $13.95 In her old job as head writer for David Letterman, Merrill Markoe conceived Stupid Pet Tricks, which remains one of TV's most popular - and downright dog-centric! - recurring segments. These days, Markoe writes funny books. Her...

The Story of Edgar Sawtelle

2008-08-01T00:00:00Z

by David Wroblewski The Story of Edgar Sawtelle shines with a strange, uneven light. It flickers, but it never quite goes out. The basics: Edgar, mute from birth, grows up in the 1970s in the remotest corner of Wisconsin, the only son of two master dog breeders/trainers, Gar and Trudy...

From Baghdad to America: Life Lessons from a Dog Named Lava

2008-07-28T00:00:00Z

By Jay Kopelman Skyhorse Publishing, $23.95, 224 pages Available on Amazon.com In the news just last week, a combat veteran of our current war, diagnosed with severe post-traumatic stress disorder, sought his own treatment, with drugs: he was found dead of an overdose. The war's wreckage of...

i'll wait in the car: dogs along for the ride

2008-07-22T00:00:00Z

Sellers PublishingIf you're like me and the sight of a dog sitting patiently in a car waiting for his owner to come and continue his ride brings a smile to your face, have I got a book for you.Maine photographer Marcie Jan Bronstein's i'll wait in the car: dogs along for the ride shows the...

Best Hikes With Dogs: North Carolina

2008-07-21T00:00:00Z

Mountaineers Books, 237 pages, $16.95 Available on Amazon.com Too many hiking-with-dog books are general, vague, and one-trip-fits-all. Not this excellent series, which offers detailed guides to paw-friendly terrain in specific regions of the country. So if your idea of bliss is packing a...

Mobil Travel Guide: On the Road With Your Pet

2008-07-15T00:00:00Z

AMC, 214 pages, $18.95 This year, the Mobil Travel Guide is celebrating its golden anniversary, (1958-2008) and there's no better occasion for an appraisal of car travel with dogs than right now, when so many Americans are including beloved dogs in their road-trip plans. A lot has happened...

Sweetie: From the Gutter to the Runway, Tantalizing Tips from a Furry Fashionista

2008-07-09T00:00:00Z

by Mark Welsh Warner Books, 144 pages Available on Alibris.com The phenomenon of bling for dogs may arguably be laid at the pedicured paws of a magnificent mongrel named Sweetie, who transcended her humble origins as a stray to become a mutt model and Elle Magazine arbiter, and...

Wally's World: Life with Wally the Wonder Dog

2008-07-07T00:00:00Z

Wally's World: Life with Wally the Wonder Dog By Marsha BoultonThomas Dunne Books, [ www.thomasdunnebooks.com ] 240 pages, $23.95 Available on Amazon.comThere are some dog memoirs that offer readers a retreat from the world, a kind of cozy, old-fashioned lullaby-in-print. And then there are...

Searching for Cassady

2008-07-02T00:00:00Z

by Anne Moore; illustrated by Lucy Knisley Handheld Press, 25 pages, $12.03 Are you a parent with a persistent child who begs for a dog, but you're not ready to commit? Then this book, aimed at young readers, may be for you and your kid. Based on a true story, it introduces us to narrator...

Woof! A Gay Man's Guide to Dogs

2008-06-30T00:00:00Z

Bow Tie Press, 208 pages, $19.95 Available on Amazon.com June is Gay Pride Month, but this out-loud-and-proud book makes fun reading no matter what the time of year, or one's sexual orientation. The P.O.V. is certainly authentic: The author, a self-described "obsessive Show Tune...

Howl: A Collection of the Best Contemporary Dog Wit from the Editors of The Bark

2008-06-25T00:00:00Z

Crown, 352 pages, $25 As you probably know, The Bark has been called "The New Yorker for dog lovers" by no less an authority than Time Magazine, and praised by The Washington Post for its "hip, literary" vibe. This is the magazine's second anthology, the first being the...

Tupelo Rides the Rails

2008-06-20T00:00:00Z

by Melissa SweetPublished by Houghton Mifflin Co.If you've ever adopted an animal and discovered that he or she fit in just right, you've discovered the magic of pet adoption. It's time to share it with your children, and there's no better introduction to the topic than the colorful, lyrical story...

Knitting for Dogs: Irresistible Patterns for Your Favorite Pup - and You!

2008-06-19T00:00:00Z

by Kristi Porter Fireside, 96 pages, $14.95 Who doesn't love a hand-knit sweater? The problem is finding the time and motivation to make one yourself. Happily, there are hand-made options you can buy at FetchDog. But if you've been feeling the urge to do it yourself, this book is just...

Salty Dogs

2008-06-17T00:00:00Z

by Jean M. Fogle Howell Book House, 112 pages, $14.99 Available on Amazon.com If your summer workload prevents you from high-tailing it to the nearest beach as often as you'd like, there could be no greater escape than this charming book of photographs captioned with quotable quotes. What...

Throw Me a Bone

2008-06-12T00:00:00Z

by Cooper Gillespie with recipes by Sally Sampson Simon & Schuster, 160 pages, $14.95 In case you've never heard of the noted cookbook author Cooper Gillespie, he's the alter ego of the noted non-fiction writer Susan Orlean. In actual fact, he is Orlean's Welsh Springer Spaniel. And...

The Art of Racing in the Rain

2008-06-10T00:00:00Z

by Garth Stein Harper, 336 pages, $23.95 Here at FetchDog, we're all for books and movies that see things from a dog's eye view. Like many recent works of fiction (including A Dog About Town and The Labrador Pact), Garth Stein's new novel has a canine narrator who's a four-footed...

Adam's Task: Calling Animals by Name

2008-06-05T00:00:00Z

by Vicki Hearne Skyhorse Publishing, 288 pages, $14.95 Available on Amazon.com I discovered this book while browsing animal training books in a long-ago bookstore on the ground floor of the World Trade Center. The book is still very much with me. I mean, there I was, looking for helpful hints on...

Pawprints of Katrina: Pets Saved and Lessons Learned

2008-06-02T00:00:00Z

by Cathy Scott Howell Book House, 256 pages, $19.99 Available on Amazon.com Along with untold devastation, the Hurricane Katrina tragedy of 2005 brought Americans a profound lesson in the importance of animal companions as valued family members. The stories in this book are...

Broadway Tails: Heartfelt Stories of Rescued Dogs Who Became Showbiz Superstars

2008-05-29T00:00:00Z

By Bill Berloni and Jim Hanrahan; foreword by Bernadette Peters The Lyons Press, 240 pages, $16.95 Available on Amazon.com If you have seen the Broadway musical Legally Blonde, you may have been charmed by the show's two dogs: Elle Woods' feisty Chihuahua Bruiser, and the hairdresser's...

A Rare Breed of Love: The True Story of Baby and the Mission She Inspired to Help Dogs Everywhere

2008-05-28T00:00:00Z

by Jana Kohl Fireside, 224 pages, $25.95 Available on Amazon.com Baby is a one-legged senior Poodle who suffered terribly during her years as a breeding bitch at a puppy mill. At age 9, Baby won the lottery: she got adopted by the author of this book, who got an idea: embark on a...

Dress Up Your Dog: 18 Costumes to Create for the Ultimate in Doggy Style

2008-05-23T00:00:00Z

by Annette Howard Thunder Bay Press, 96 pages, $9.95 Available on Amazon.com Here at FetchDog, we are big believers in dressing dogs to protect them from rain and snow, and to observe Santa's favorite holiday, Christmas. But there are other occasions that call for a dog dressed...

Stop the Shots! Are Vaccinations Killing Our Pets?

2008-05-20T00:00:00Z

by John Clifton Foley Square Books, 102 pages, $8.95 Available on Amazon.comThe title of this book is certainly an attention-getter, and it's meant to be. The author edits the online newsletter Fighting Back: Canine Cancer Monthly and is well acquainted with the subject of dogs and...

Pawfiles: Portraits of Dogs

2008-05-15T00:00:00Z

By Kim Levin Andrews McMeel, 130 pages, $14.95 There's really no such thing as a picture book about "dogs." There is only - case in point here - a book about Lucy and Boomer; Owen; Charlie; Josie. And if Kim Levin's engaging portraits of these true individuals aren't proof...

Dogs of Dreamtime

2008-05-12T00:00:00Z

By Karen Shanley Lyons Press, 238 pages, $14.95Available on Amazon.com Have you ever dreamed about dogs? Surely you have. But you've probably never dreamed of them like Karen Shanley has. When her beloved Sheltie, Kiera, dies, Shanley dreams she's come back - as an Aussie pup somewhere...

Dogs in Their Gardens

2008-05-07T00:00:00Z

text and photographs by Page Dickey Harry N. Abrams, 96 pages, $16.96 Available on Amazon.comPerhaps you're an avid gardener but you haven't got a dog because you fear he might dig up your daffodils or tear up your tulips? The 90 charming color photographs in this blooming beauty of a book...

Nice Gardens and Dogs are not Mutually Exclusive!

2008-05-05T00:00:00Z

There was a time when I thought my dogs and my flower beds couldn't co-exist, but Cheryl Smith, the author of Dog Friendly Gardens, Garden Friendly Dogs, taught me otherwise. Smith, a master gardener and a dog trainer, comes at the Fido-garden issue from both the planning and dog behavior...

My Lucky Dog

2008-05-01T00:00:00Z

by Mellon Tytell William Morrow, 96 pages, $19.95Available on Amazon.com There are few more eloquent testimonials to how profoundly an adopted mutt can change a person than this exquisite book of photographs. The lucky dog of the title is an 86-pound mixed-breed named Hunter, who might have ended...

Broadway Barks

2008-04-30T00:00:00Z

by Bernadette Peters Blue Apple Books, 40 pages, $17.95 Available on Amazon.com If you are both a dog lover and a theatre fiend, it's hard to beat the lovely summer day that Shubert Alley, the epicenter of Broadway, presents Broadway Barks, a fantastic pet adoption event hosted by Mary Tyler...

The Soul of a Horse: Life Lessons from the Herd

2008-04-29T00:00:00Z

By Joe CampHarmony, 272 pages, $24.95 Available on Amazon.com Joe Camp, the man who launched Benji (and a thousand shelter-dog adoptions) in 1974 and made the winsome mutt a major franchise, now brings his sensitivity and deep concern for all animals to the training of horses. But this new book is...

The Underdog: A Celebration of Mutts

2008-04-23T00:00:00Z

by Julia SzaboWorkman, 256 pages, $12.95 Available on Amazon.com Some choose underdogs. Some have underdogs thrust upon them. All of us end up content. This book is an expansive celebration of underdogs, a.k.a. mutts, and their people. A cheerfully-designed canine catalog, it...

The Dog Princess Fairy Tails

2008-04-21T00:00:00Z

HarperCollins, 32 pages, $16.99 Kawaii means cute in Japan, where cuteness - a.k.a. kawaisa - is taken very, very seriously. What could be more kawaii than a puppy? Nothing - hence the tremendous popular success of The Dog Artist Collection, whose signature is photographing puppies at extreme...

The Labrador Pact

2008-04-15T00:00:00Z

by Matt Haig Viking Adult, 352 pages, $23.95 Available on Amazon.com Novelist Matt Haig follows last year's Dead Fathers Club, his re-telling of Hamlet, with this dog's-eye-view take on the dissolution of one contemporary English family. Haig's obviously still got the Dane on the...

Celebrity Dogs: Photographs by Kamil Salah

2008-04-10T00:00:00Z

powerHouse Books, 96 pages, $19.95 Do blondes really have more fun? Well, are celebrity dogs really more beautiful than the usual run of pooch? On the evidence of pictures by the late Kamil Salah, a high-fashion photographer, the answer is "Apparently so!" No, but that's because while...

Dogs We Love

2008-04-08T00:00:00Z

Artisan, 176 pages, $15.95 Edited by Michael J. Rosen Available on Amazon.com This brilliant book first came out a few years ago, in a very different format. A slim, oversize paperback, it was the book equivalent of a Saluki. Now, the publisher has wisely opted to reissue it,...

Narrow Dog to Carcassonne

2008-04-02T00:00:00Z

by Terry DarlingtonDelta Trade Paperbacks, 325 pages, $13 If it is a foolhardy notion to sail a narrowboat - made for going down shallow and waveless canals - across the perilous English Channel, then what is it to sail one across the channel with a Whippet aboard? Apparently, a capital idea, so...

Retro Read: This is Wild Dog

2008-04-01T00:00:00Z

4-part mini-series by Max Collins, Terry Beatty, Dick Giordano DC Comics, 1987I love comic books with dogs in them. Here's a secret: These "Wild Dog" comic books are the kind that my mom tells me I shouldn't be reading. That's because on just about every page there's some...

Instamatic Karma

2008-03-27T00:00:00Z

St. Martin's Press, 160 pages, $29.95 Available on Amazon.com It's extremely rare for unconditional love - the kind we get from dogs - to exist between complicated humans, but John Lennon and Yoko Ono appear to have gotten lucky. In 1973, Ono encouraged her and Lennon's personal...

Positive Perspectives 2; Know your Dog, Train your Dog

2008-03-26T00:00:00Z

by Pat Miller Dogwise Publishing, 283 pages, $21.95 Available on Amazon.com Like the original Positive Perspectives, this book is based on the series of articles Pat Miller wrote for Whole Dog Journal and the Tufts University publication Your Dog. But, as Miller writes in her introduction,...

Positive Perspectives; Love your Dog, Train your Dog

2008-03-26T00:00:00Z

by Pat MillerDogwise Publishing, 262 pages, $19.95 Available on Amazon.com In the interest of full disclosure, I should mention that I'm a huge Pat Miller fan and follower, and my own training philosophy and methods are very close to Pat Miller's. When I first decided to become a dog trainer and...

For the Love of a Dog: Understanding Emotion in You and Your Best Friend

2008-03-20T00:00:00Z

By Patricia B. McConnell, Ph.D. Ballantine Books, 332 pages, $24.95 Available on Amazon.com I really, really hope no one backs me up against a wall and forces me to choose just one book on canine behavior to recommend, because lately there have been a spate of keen and insightful explorations of...

Mutts: The Comic Art of Patrick McDonnell

2008-03-18T00:00:00Z

Abrams, 216 pages, $45Every day, some of us practice yoga to try to attain a reflective calm, a sense of oneness with all life. We could just as easily turn to any one of 500 newspapers (you surely get one of them) and read Patrick McDonnell's comic strip "Mutts." There, in the world and...

Doc Halligan's What Every Pet Owner Should Know

2008-03-14T00:00:00Z

by Karen Halligan Collins, 336 pages, $15.95 When you adopt your first dog, there are plenty of important things you won't know, and many of those mysteries have to do with your new pet's health. Not all vets want to help us lay folk understand those mysteries (it's potentially more...

Tell Me Where It Hurts: A Day of Humor, Healing and Hope in My Life as an Animal Surgeon

2008-03-11T00:00:00Z

by Dr. Nick Trout Broadway Books, 304 pages, $22.95 Ever since an English country vet named Alf Wight (pen name: James Herriot) mesmerized scores of readers, motivating large numbers of them to enter the veterinary profession, the publishing world has longed for his literary heir. At long last,...

Pit's Letter

2008-03-10T00:00:00Z

By Sue CoeFour Walls Eight Windows, 48 pages, $22 Available on Amazon.comActivist artist Sue Coe never makes her work pretty, or subtle, or easy. But that is why her book is unforgettable. Coe's art, which will bring to mind the nightmare vision of Goya, expresses its passionate pro-animal message...

From Baghdad with Love: A Marine, the War, and a Dog Named Lava

2008-03-07T00:00:00Z

The Lyons Press, 196 pages, $22.95Available on Amazon.com The story begins in Fallujah, in the first week of the U.S. invasion in 2004. It ends in California in 2005, but in terms of emotional expenditure, the year might as well be several lifetimes. That's because the story is about a stray puppy...

Retro Read: My Dog Tulip

2008-03-05T00:00:00Z

by J. R. Ackerley, 1956 NYRB Classics, 208 pages, $13.95 Available on Amazon.comThere is nothing as bracing, joyful, and satisfying as good writing - words and humor and insight flow together in one happy river. And when the good writing forms the story of a dog, well, then, we're in...

Through A Dog's Ear: How to Use Sound to Improve the Health & Behavior of Your Canine Companion

2008-02-28T00:00:00Z

by Joshua Leeds and Susan Wagner Sounds True, 184 pages, $18.95 (includes 45-minute starter CD) Available on Amazon.com Many years ago, I used to hang out in the barn of a breeder of Thoroughbred horses who always had the radio tuned to a classical music station; she firmly believed it...

Training People by Tess of Helena

2008-02-26T00:00:00Z

Chronicle Books, 2007, 108 pages, $14.95 Available on Amazon.comThis handsomely-produced book is written in the voice of Tess of Helena, who is a Very Bad Dog in a cute cartoon way, which means she is a lovable canine diva, Lab division. The subtitle of the book is "How to Bring Out the...

The Diary of Jinky, Dog of a Hollywood Wife

2008-02-21T00:00:00Z

as told to Carole Raphaelle Davis Andrews McMeel, 216 pages, $12.95 Available on Amazon.comA book "authored" by a dog? I know what you're thinking: too cute by half! But this title is different: it's smart and sassy and witty, like no other book "authored" by a dog...

A Dog Year: Twelve Months, Four Dogs, and Me

2008-02-19T00:00:00Z

By Jon KatzRandom House, 240 pages, $12.95 As I read the first half of Jon Katz's "A Dog Year," his entertaining and informative account of adopting a crazy Border Collie (wait! that's a redundancy, isn't it??), I found myself glad it wasn't a movie. That's because it would have been the...

The Complete Peanuts, 8 volumes

2008-02-14T00:00:00Z

Fantagraphics, $28.95 per volume Available on Amazon.com When Uno the Beagle took 2008 Best in Show at Westminster, it was an event - the first time in history that one of Snoopy's brethren won Top Dog at the country's most prestigious canine beauty pageant. The worldwide...

The Complete Dog Book for Kids

2008-02-12T00:00:00Z

An Official Publication of the American Kennel ClubWiley, 274 pages, $22.95 When they say "complete," they're not kidding (excuse the pun). It would be hard to come up with one dog-oriented item not covered in this colorful, oversized paperback introduction to dog ownership geared to...

Before Your Dog Can Eat Your Homework, First You Have to Do It: Life Lessons from a Wise Old Dog to a Young Boy

2008-02-07T00:00:00Z

by John O'HurleyHudson Street Press,176 pages, $21.95 Available on Amazon.com Actor and dog lover John O'Hurley's unexpectedly poignant second book doesn't quite boast a comforting title like Don't Sweat the Small Stuff, but I think this is intentional. O'Hurley co-wrote the book with...

Rex and the City: A Memoir of a Woman, a Man, and a Dysfunctional Dog

2008-02-05T00:00:00Z

by Lee Harrington Villard, 272 pages, $13.95 Most of us don't get a dog in a vacuum--that is to say, we bring our dogs from the shelter into lives filled with prior relationships. With humans. However, we very well may be bringing them home into a dog-knowledge vacuum, and the effect can be...

Merle's Door: Lessons from a Freethinking Dog

2008-01-31T00:00:00Z

By Ted Kerasote Harcourt, 398 pages, $25 Available on Amazon.com Maybe the best thing of all is when a dog finds us, not when we go looking for a dog. Then it means you are truly meant for each other.This is what happened to Ted Kerasote, an outdoor writer, when he was camping in Utah. A dog...

Street Dogs

2008-01-29T00:00:00Z

by Traer ScottMerrell, 128 pages, $22.95 Purchase a copy here and a portion of proceeds benefits World Society for the Protection of Animals.Don't be scared away by the title. This is a book full of unexpected hope. Look at that dog on the cover, beautiful and grave, in the gorgeous black and...

Demo, the Story of a Junkyard Dog

2008-01-22T00:00:00Z

by Jon Bozak and Scott Bruns 58 pages, $17.95 Available at Demo-Dog.comJust like the title character, Demo, this book is a lovable mixed breed. The oversized format and ebullient, comic book-style pictures suggest a picture book suitable for smallish kids. But the dense text and somewhat...

The New Yorkers

2008-01-17T00:00:00Z

The New Yorkers by Cathleen Schine Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 304 pages, $24 Available on Amazon.com Novelist and essayist Cathleen Schine has a dog, a blog, and a new novel, and each is delightful in its own way. Schine's...

Extraordinary Dogs

2008-01-15T00:00:00Z

by Joyce Darrell Lyons Press, 192 pages, $14.95 Available on Amazon.com On some dark days, you need a pep talk. It could always be worse! Or, If things seem bleak, just take the blindfold off and see the light. Here's a pep talk between covers, a compendium of stories about dogs who, through...

Dogs

2008-01-10T00:00:00Z

by Catherine Johnson Phaidon, 512 pages, $14.95 Available on Amazon.com Thanks to Catherine Johnson's overwhelming love of dogs, photography, and most especially vintage photos featuring dogs, we dog photo fiends have an eccentric new gem of a book to peruse. It's the photographic equivalent of a...

A Dog About Town

2008-01-08T00:00:00Z

by J.F. Englert Bantam, 271 pages, $6.99Available on Amazon.com It's elementary: The mystery genre known as the "cozy" is dominated by cats, whether they're incidental characters, feline detectives, or - in the case of Rita Mae Brown and her partner in crime, Sneaky Pie Brown -...

Dogs I Have Met

2008-01-02T00:00:00Z

by Ken FosterThe Lyons Press, 202 pages, $14.95 Available on Amazon.com Ken Foster has met a lot of dogs and their people, and they show up, in all their complicated glory, in his latest book, "Dogs I Have Met."First, a true confession: Years ago, I met Foster, when he was still a New...

The Darkest Evening of the Year

2007-12-26T00:00:00Z

The Darkest Evening of the Year by Dean KoontzBantam, 368 pages, $27 "I love dogs for the purity of their devotion, their loyalty, and their strength," says best-selling author Dean Koontz, whose latest title - like many of his previous ones - involves a brilliant canine as a...

Dogs' Miscellany

2007-12-20T00:00:00Z

By J.A. WinesDelacorte, 185 pp., $10"To his dog, every man is Napoleon; hence the constant popularity of dogs." So said Aldous Huxley, and did you ever see a more perfect nutshell in which the truth was housed? This quote, and dozens of others, along with passages from classic...

Off-Leash Dog Play: A Complete Guide to Safety & Fun

2007-12-18T00:00:00Z

By Robin Bennett, CPDT, and Susan Briggs, CKOC&R Publishing, 160 pages, $19.95 available on Amazon.comI am so glad. I'm really happy. My whole body is wiggling with delight.Well, if I was a dog, that's what I'd be doing. For two reasons: That's how dogs communicate, primarily with a large...

The Tao of Rudy

2007-12-13T00:00:00Z

The Tao of Rudy by Corinne HumphreySage Press, 34 pages, $19.95 (the author is donating 10 percent of net proceeds to several charities, including Friends of Animals, which sheltered Rudy) Short and sweet--the best things are. (In fact, that's what my Nelly is: about 8 inches off the ground, and...

The Grand Surprise: The Journals of Leo Lerman

2007-12-10T00:00:00Z

Edited by Stephen PascalKnopf, 688 pages, $37.50 Leo Lerman was a runt of a New York mutt who ran with the pedigreed purebreds: a housepainter's son who survived stillbirth to grow up a glamorous, worldly aesthete, becoming Features Editor of Vogue, then Editor in Chief of Vanity Fair. His wit and...

The Dangerous Book for Dogs

2007-12-06T00:00:00Z

By Rex & Sparky, with the assistance of Joe Garden, Janet Ginsburg, Chris Pauls, Anita Serwacki, Scott Sherman. Villard Books, 193 pp., $15.95I sort of hate to tell them this, because it's just a parody and all, but the whole notion of a "Dangerous Book for Dogs" is redundant....

Good Dog. Stay.

2007-12-04T00:00:00Z

By Anna Quindlen. Random House, 83 pp., $14.95Dogs' life spans are no fair. That's all I have to say about that.Anna Quindlen (you know, the former New York Times "women's interest" writer and Bestselling Author) has a little more to say on the subject. But not all that much: this...

Dog First Aid by American Red Cross

2007-11-29T00:00:00Z

Dog First Aid by American Red Cross, 116 pp., $16.95 Aren't there a bunch of things you know are important, but you just don't get around to them? Buy a carbon-monoxide detector, have the brakes checked, learn CPR?That's my list, anyway. Now I've added "learn first aid for dogs."...

Control Unleashed: Creating a Focused and Confident Dog

2007-11-05T00:00:00Z

Control Unleashed: Creating a Focused and Confident Dog by Leslie McDevitt Clean Run Productions, 225 pages Ever noticed how some of the best dog trainers are not equally good with people? Well, I have, even though I'm not going to share some of the more egregious examples I've seen in...

Miss Sarah's Guide to Etiquette for Dogs & Their People

2007-10-15T00:00:00Z

Miss Sarah's Guide to Etiquette for Dogs & Their Peopleby Sarah Hodgson with Arthur GreenwaldHowell Book House, 133 pagesMove over, Misses Post and Vanderbilt ? there's a new etiquette expert on the scene, and she's here to help us all behave better, whether we're canine or human. Don't be put...

Redemption: The Myth of Pet Overpopulation and the No-Kill Revolution in America

2007-10-15T00:00:00Z

Redemption: The Myth of Pet Overpopulation and the No-Kill Revolution in Americaby Nathan J. Winograd Almaden Books, 238 pages It's not hard to be discouraged by the appalling numbers of healthy, loving, adoptable dogs in America's animal shelters who are systematically put to death. Don't...