What Dog?: A Guide to Help New Owners Select the Right Breed for Their Lifestyle (What Pet Books?)

by Amanda O'Neill

Here are illustrated profiles of 100 popular dog breeds, arranged by size of dog and updated to include a section on popular crossbreeds. Detailed descriptions are complemented with a... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0764132725
• Release Date: January 2006
• Publisher: B E S Pub Co
• Length: 224 Pages
• Weight: 0.95 lbs.
• Dimensions: 7.3" x 0.8" x 6.5"

Customer Reviews

Excellent, but not perfect

I love this book for the honest answers to a multitude of important questions. Most breed guides read more like promotional materials than honest assessments of whether a particular breed might fit into your lifestyle. The weaknesses have been covered by others already: a)should have used 5 size groupings (toy, small, medium, large, giant); b)no sensible order within the size groups; c)some odd categorizations (they put Bassets in medium??); and, c) (probably because it is British), they left out some breeds common in America (Fox Terrier, Pointer, Cattle Dog, American Eskimo) while including some obscure ones (Dogue de Bordeaux, Neopolitan Mastiff, Skye Terrier). Nonetheless, it is very difficult to find excellent, portable breed guides instead of glorified breed standards or coffee table heavyweights. Recommended for anyone beginning to investigate breed options or, due to the many gorgeous and comprehensive pictures, those trying to identify breeds for rescue/shelters.

What Dog? A Guide to Help New Owners Select the Right Breed for Their Lifestyle (What Pet Books?)

Very good book about various breeds of dogs and their requirements. Insightful comments about each breed such as HOW suitable they are as family dogs, WHAT type of home is best, WHAT type of owner is best, HOW compatible they are with other family pets, HOW much exercise is needed, HOW easy to train, WHAT are each breed's good points, WHAT to be aware of and WHAT medical problems are inherent. The book was organized by size of dog rather than alpha by breed group as some other books of this type, which made it a bit challenging to find 'your' breeds. The size designation could be helpful to first time dog owners as many people consider size first as an indication of whether a dog will fit into their environment/lifestyle, but the actual size designations were a bit mystifying. For example: why is a Samoyed at 21-23.5 inches/50-66 pounds considered a medium dog while a Bearded Collie at 21-22 inches/40-60 pounds considered a large breed? And since size is the primary designator, it might have helped to break size down into 5 groups rather than three -- especially in the "small" and "large" designations as it is hard to truly compare a chihuahua to a cocker spaniel or an airedale to a mastiff.

Reccomended- a smaller guide, but with great information

This is one of my favorite guides to dog breeds. It doesn't list all the breeds, and the organization makes it hard to find a breed without looking in the index (organized by size, not by breed name, or even by group). But that being said, it devotes two pages to each breed and I think it answers what most people want to know about owning the breed. The sections offered are: what colors?, what grooming does it need? how suitiable are they as family dogs?, what type of home?, what type of owner?, how compatibable are they with other pets?, how much exercise?, how easy to train?, what good points?, what to be aware of?, and what medical problems?. There is also a small chart that makes it easy to compare some of these attributes with other breeds. Another guide that I reccomend that has this information for many more breeds, plus some more on the history of the dog, is the Encylopedia of Dog Breeds by Caroline Coile. However, "What Dog" is a great smaller version.

A winner.

New dog owners and potential owners know how important the right breed is - but it's also easy to ignore sense when a cute dog enters the picture. This book is designed to highlight the pros and cons of breed characteristics with an eye to helping owners choose breeds that fit their lifestyle. Color photos of a hundred popular breeds highlight each breed's personality and survey how it will fit into a home. Lovely drawings, sidebars of tips, and some 400 color photos make WHAT DOG? A GUIDE TO HELP NEW OWNERS SELECT THE RIGHT BREED FOR THEIR LIFESTYLE a winner. Diane C. Donovan California Bookwatch