I love the Internet, but I can’t fall asleep every night without reading a few chapters of a good old fashioned physical book.  Here are a few of my dog-related recommendations…

If you’re thinking about getting a dog, I strongly suggest The Art of Raising a Puppy by the Monks of New Skete.  Not only will this book help you decide if you should really get a puppy, but it will also help you figure out what kind of dog is right for you and offers excellent advice on training and care of your animal.  Even though the copyright is 1991, the pictures look like they were taken in the 70s - so don’t read it for the fashion, but it’s a must-read for the content.

My favorite piece of advice (which I have never seen or heard anywhere else) was about what to do if your puppy/dog gets away from you.  Living in New York, I’m in constant fear that I will drop Oscar’s leash or that he will escape from the dog run when someone has carelessly left the door open and he will run out into traffic.  The good advice from the Monks is as follows:

“…do not chase after her…Instead, try moving quickly in the opposite direction.  Dogs have a predatory instinct that manifests itself when something runs away from them, and often you can trigger this by pretending to “escape” from your pup.”

I had to use this method once - we were visiting my parent’s house in upstate New York.  My parents live on a wooded 27 acres, surrounded by farms, so Oscar is allowed to go off-leash.  He’s normally very good and stays within 20 feet of us, but one day we came across some grazing cows at the border of my parents property…uh-oh.  Oscar had never seen a cow before.  We looked at Oscar, he looked at us…we said, “No, Oscar!”, he took one last look and hi-tailed it after the giant “dogs”.  

At first it was hilarious - the cows actually started running away from an 18 lb dog and mooing in protest.  But it got scary quickly, he was on the other side of a barbed-wire fence and what if he actually caught up to them??  Remembering the advice from the monks, I told my mom & sister to run in the opposite direction.  I yelled Oscar’s name one more time and as soon as he turned to look, I started sprinting in the opposite direction.  It worked like a charm.  Oscar hi-tailed it back and we’re now able to tell the funny story of the time a lap dog tried to herd cows.

But I digress - back to the book recommendations…

For puppy training, I also like The Complete Idoits Guide to Raising a Puppy by Liz Palika.  It’s very easy to read and a good book for reference.

We’ve also had a lot of fun with tricks training.  For simple step-by-step trick training methods try Dog Tricks for Dummies by Sarah Hodgson and The Everything Dog Training and Tricks Book by Gerilyn J. Bielakiewicz.

Finally, if you like a good dog-related novel, check out The Dogs of Babel by Carolyn Parkhurst or The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon.  Babel gets a little wacky near the end and The Curious Incident isn’t really about dogs at all, but they were both excellent reads if you’re looking for some good fiction.

Any dog-related reading recommendations?  I’d love to hear them.