Laurie S. (LaurieS) reviewed Before After Getting Your Puppy: The Positive Approach to Raising a Happy, Healthy Well-Behaved Dog on + 504 more book reviews
This book is a comprehensive guide to selecting, preparing and caring for a puppy and a must read for anyone considering adding a canine baby to their lives or for anyone who needs to housebreak and train an older pup from scratch.
The author tackles everything in a way that is understandable for even the newest puppy owner and he doesnt talk down to you and has a great sense of humor about things instead. As an example he says if your puppy dog makes a potty error inside the house, you should pick up a newspaper and smack yourself with it because its your fault for not following the rules. The puppy doesnt know the rules. I thought that was a very cute and tactful way to handle owner stupidity without calling out said stupidity in an insulting way as some trainers are prone to do.
The rules can look intimidating at first glance and I won't be following them all (there's no way I can introduce my pup to 3 new people each day) but training a pup/dog is a huge time investment and an on-going process that will pay-off in a well-trained dog for the rest of its life. Letting the dog out every hour on the hour, training him to sit, stand, come, be gentle, take food from your hands -- all that stuff is so important in the beginning. My older doggies, who are now in doggie heaven, were angels only to me, LOL. They were what many would call naughty. They jumped on visitors, begged for food and barked like lunatics at strange men (well, I must admit that quirk never bugged me at all) but I was young, busy and yes LAZY when I got them and didnt follow through on the basic training. I was just happy they did their business outside, didnt eat the house when I left and never bit anyone but they could have been so much better if only Id invested the time and found this book way back when.
I highly recommend this book to anyone pondering a pup.
The author tackles everything in a way that is understandable for even the newest puppy owner and he doesnt talk down to you and has a great sense of humor about things instead. As an example he says if your puppy dog makes a potty error inside the house, you should pick up a newspaper and smack yourself with it because its your fault for not following the rules. The puppy doesnt know the rules. I thought that was a very cute and tactful way to handle owner stupidity without calling out said stupidity in an insulting way as some trainers are prone to do.
The rules can look intimidating at first glance and I won't be following them all (there's no way I can introduce my pup to 3 new people each day) but training a pup/dog is a huge time investment and an on-going process that will pay-off in a well-trained dog for the rest of its life. Letting the dog out every hour on the hour, training him to sit, stand, come, be gentle, take food from your hands -- all that stuff is so important in the beginning. My older doggies, who are now in doggie heaven, were angels only to me, LOL. They were what many would call naughty. They jumped on visitors, begged for food and barked like lunatics at strange men (well, I must admit that quirk never bugged me at all) but I was young, busy and yes LAZY when I got them and didnt follow through on the basic training. I was just happy they did their business outside, didnt eat the house when I left and never bit anyone but they could have been so much better if only Id invested the time and found this book way back when.
I highly recommend this book to anyone pondering a pup.
Susan M. (petvet) reviewed Before After Getting Your Puppy: The Positive Approach to Raising a Happy, Healthy Well-Behaved Dog on + 76 more book reviews
very useful book for those of us who are getting or just got a puppy.
