An illustrated, definitive guide to canine care and training covers subjects ranging from choosing the right dog to understanding its particular dietary needs and emphasizes the cultivation of companionship between dogs and their owners. Reprint. 25,000 first printing.
I wrote this book to make up for mistakes in the past.I was born to write this book, and if memory serves, those are the exact words I used to convince the Humane Society of the United States to let me be its author. We agreed that we wanted our book to be different, to place the needs of the dog on an equal basis with those of the owner. While you're asking yourself, "Is this the right dog for me?" we'd like you to also ask, "Am I the right owner for this dog?"
I'm nuts about dogs, and I think it's the saddest thing that so many dog/owner relationships don't work out. Even so, I understand why. Dogs are so familiar that it's easy to think they must just naturally "fit in." Not so!
I grew up in the 50's in the Catskill Mountains of New York State. My father owned a small chicken farm at the base of a mountain, surrounded by fields, woods, streams and cow pastures. I probably was about six when I started begging for a dog like some of my schoolmates had. My parents obliged, but I wasn't prepared for the heartache that followed.
I don’t know where the first pup, Gyp, came from, but he died after only a few weeks. He never saw a veterinarian -- the idea of taking an animal to a doctor was not part of my father's experience (people ‘doctoring’ was pretty much seen as extravagant!) -- so Gyp's cause of death was unexplained. Puppies died, who knew why. It seemed that owning a dog was tougher than I’d thought it would be.
The next dog, a collie cross named Tony, was a young adult dog given to us by another family in our rural community. Tony was not allowed in the house (and this was the Northeast!), nor was he confined to our property. Not surprisingly, he never considered our home to be his, though he'd show up for handouts regularly and liked to walk us children to our one-room schoolhouse in the mornings. [The school picture for the year 1951 includes the whole student body -- all 18 of us -- and Tony.] At some point Tony just stopped showing up at our house. We never knew what happened to him. If my parents knew, they didn’t tell us. It seemed harder and harder to get a dog who would last.
After Tony came Butch. Adopted from the nearest city "pound," Butch was an adult dog of mixed breeding when my father acquired him to keep deer out of the garden and predators out of the chicken coops. Butch, however, preferred to chase the neighboring farmer's cows, and would have had to be tied up had that practice continued. Sadly, Butch also chased trains. We'd only had him a few weeks when he was hit by a train. It took him a day or so to drag himself home. I remember sitting high in the branches of my favorite tree when I heard the rifle shot that ended his life. That was how injured or sick animals were relieved of their suffering in our family. It wasn't meanness -- just ignorance mixed with poverty. As a child, my heart was always broken about the way our dogs and cats — not to mention the farm and wild animals around us — lived and died.
Finally, our luck with dogs changed. Pepper, a German shepherd mix, was one pup in a neighborhood litter. My brother, sister and I picked him out and named him. We brought him home at six or seven weeks, and he lived to the age of 16 years. Never wore a leash. Saw a veterinarian exactly once when a free rabies clinic was held in the next town. Pepper was never neutered, never confined, never sick, never vaccinated except for that one rabies shot. He lived outdoors for the first few years, but one winter during a blizzard my father brought him into the house — which took some coaxing, believe it or not. After that, however, Pepper was an indoor/outdoor dog — coming and going pretty much as he pleased. No one ever trained him, but "somehow" he learned everything he needed to know: he housetrained himself, he was the perfect watchdog, he stayed at home, he got along with our strictly outdoor cats and never chased cars, trains or livestock, though he did tangle with skunks, porcupines, snakes and whatever else he encountered. Pepper went everywhere we kids went and effortlessly "fit in" with our lifestyle. When I left my small town after college and moved to New York City, I took with me the notion that dogs were meant to live "free" in the country, that a healthy dog didn’t need veterinary care and certainly didn’t need training to turn out right. I’d been told that "pedigreed" dogs were high-strung and sickly and had no reason to question this. I had learned that owning a dog was equal parts joy and heartache.
For a dozen years I was dogless. But during those years I saw plenty of dogs in the city, and it was obvious that they were living very different kinds of lives than ours had lived. Most were purebreds. They were always on the end of a short leash, they didn’t get to run and swim and explore and do what they wanted to do, yet they were safe and healthy and, oddly, seemed happy enough. In 1978 my live-in boyfriend started lobbying for a dog, and he had a very definite kind of dog in mind. I didn’t even know what a Yorkshire terrier was, and it was with major misgivings, that I consented to having my birthday present be a Yorkie puppy. The world changed on that day.
I learned a lot about dogs in the ensuing years. Many of my early beliefs had to be reversed. The more I learned, the worse I felt about the ways we'd failed three out of four of our country dogs. And even though Pepper largely lived an idyllic life, I came to realize how much of that had been luck and circumstance and geography. The world has changed since 1950, for children, for dogs and for adults, too.
Writing this book has been payback time. In it I've poured everything I've learned about dogs through the process of owning them, training them, living with and loving them, being a groomer, reading hundreds of books, attending dozens of seminars, dog shows, obedience trials, working trials of all kinds, working for 10 years for the American Kennel Club and now for The ASPCA. As an editor and writer, and as a person involved in animal welfare, I've been motivated by my evolving personal vision of what constitutes "the good life" for a dog at this time and place. My hope for this book is that it may persuade others to choose their dogs wisely and to care for them as they deserve.
Please let me know what you think.
Writing in ASPCA Animal Watch (Fall 1998), Carter Luke, Vice President, The Massachusetts Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, had this to say about The HSUS'Complete Guide to Dog Care:
"The first thought that occurred to me when I picked up The Complete Guide to Dog Care was, 'Just what the world needs -- another dog care book.' I couldn't have been more wrong.
"From the very first chapter, What is a dog?, I knew this one was different. The 'Guide' helps the reader understand the kingdom of dog and the basics of why dogs do the things they do and how their human companions can act to foster a long-lasting and mutually happy relationship. This book was written by people who clearly know dogs and kow how to keep them together with their human partners.
"Animal organizations know that people frequently acquire dogs with unrealistic expectations. This is one of the fundamental causes of dog-human relationship failures. The book devotes an appropriately significant amount of space to the choice period, emphasizing not only how and where to get a dog, but perhaps more importantly, whether acquiring a dog is a good idea in the first place.
"From there, in an entertaining and easy-to-read style, the 'Guide' addresses other key aspects of living with a canine: picking a veterinarian, housetraining, feeding, grooming, traveling with a dog, solving behavior problems and my favorite part, how to play and have fun with your dog friend. Key points of the book are illustrated with great pictures and stories of real-life dogs and their people.
"The book closes with an honest and very sensitively presented discussion about how to approach the older years of our dog partners. Made me think -- and made me cry.
"Yes, my initial reaction was very wrong. You know what the world needs now? A similar book on cats."
