The full title of this book is How to Raise the Perfect Dog Through Puppyhood and Beyond. It is co-authored by Cesar Millan who is the host of a TV show called the Dog Whisperer. His philosophy is that dog owners must be their dog's pack leader. If the owner is not the leader, than the dog is likely to exhibit all sorts of behavior problems such as jumping on people, not obeying instructions, chewing on inappropriate objects, barking, etc. Mr. Millan says his mission in life is to teach owners how to handle dogs and prevent dog misbehaviour that results in owners rejecting and abandoning their pet.
To help provide material and examples for the book, Mr. Millan adopted five puppies and used his experiences with them to discuss in this book. The five puppies are all different breeds, but the most attention is given to the experiences of a bull dog. However, the dog stories in the book are not exclusively about the five puppies. In fact, the development and progress of the five dogs is rather difficult to follow because so many other dogs and issues are discussed.
Mr. Millan says raising the perfect dog begins with procuring a puppy from a reputable source. Specifically, a reputable source for a dog is a professional breeder or rescue shelter. The author warns against buying from pet stores. Dogs from pet stores may not have been treated well and could have behavioral and health problems as a result.
Mr. Milan goes on to describe his experiences procuring the five dogs for this book. He discusses the behavior of some of the puppies he observed during his selection process. However, he makes rather elaborate claims about the puppy behavior he witnessed. Based on brief interactions with the pups, he draws conclusions about their personalities and future character. His snap judgements seem very speculative and sometimes far fetched. For example, after a few minutes of observing a mother and her puppies, he observes one puppy wandering away from the mother so he decides that particular puppy has certain characteristics its siblings lack. Readers will suspect that an hour before or after he observed this wandering puppy, he probably could have seen one of its siblings doing exactly the same thing.
Mr. Millian and his co-author go on to discusses what to expect from your new puppy and address a comprehensive list of subjects and give practical advice related to raising a puppy.
The whole philosophy of Mr. Milian is based on dog owners projecting calm assertive energy around their dog and being the pack leader. He also emphasizes that dogs should be fed and walked on a routine schedule which contributes to the dogs perception that the owner is the pack leader. An alternative approach to Mr. Millians philosophy would be to think of the dog as a friend and equal and for the owner to follow and react to the dog's behavior. This would let the dog be in charge and the owner would lose control. In that situation the dog can become a nuisance to the owner and to other people.
Almost all the information and advice presented is told in the form of stories about real dogs and experiences, so the information is rarely dry or boring. Even for readers who don't particularly like dogs, the stories are well enough written to make for generally good reading.
One thing this book makes clear is how much work and responsibility is involved in raising and caring properly for a dog. It may make many readers appreciate the superiority of cats as pets. But if people still insist on owning a dog, this book is full of good advice about raising a well behaved one so that at least it won't be an annoyance to people who don't particularly like for dogs.
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