003. Books
Description
This article is from the Selecting a Dog Breed FAQ, posted to rec.pets.dogs newsgroup. Maintained by Amy Hendrix, with numerous contributions by others.
003. Books
There are lots of breed books out there. Most of them are picture books, which offer pictures and some very basic information about the breeds, but little else. Here are three books which will give you more direction as far as choosing a breed, with more detailed breed descriptions including information on temperament, honest discussion of the breed's problems, and help in making the decision.
* Hart, Lynette A. The Perfect Puppy. WH Freeman. 1987. ISBN 0-7167-1829-4. This covers only about 65 breeds' temperaments, but makes a greater effort to be objective than some other sources. Lists health defects in particular breeds. * Lowell, Michele. Your Purebred Puppy: A Buyer's Guide. Holt and Co. 1991. ISBN 0-8050-1892-1. Far more comprehensive than Hart's book, with useful warnings about health defects to watch for in specific breeds. * Tortora, Daniel F. The Right Dog For You. Fireside, Simon & Schuster Trade Books. 1983. ISBN 0-671-47247-X. Offers a complex decision procedure, with lots of questionnaires to alert you to the potential significance of various features of breed behavior and physical characteristics. * Walkowicz, Chris. The Perfect Match. Howell Book House, 1996. This one of the newest books on the subject, and one of the best. The breed profiles are thorough, accurate, and up-to-date; for the first time, every one of them is based on interviews with breeders and rescuers involved in the breed. And unlike most of the other books in the field, this one is written with style and a sense of humor.
Of these books, the Tortora book has the most detailed decision procedure -- in it, you work through a series of questionnaires, eliminating breeds until you are left with only a few by the end of the book. It's in need of a revision, though -- it covers only 123 breeds recognized by the AKC as of the late '70s. Since that time, the working group has split into the working and herding groups, and over a dozen new breeds have been recognized -- and that's only in the AKC. There are hundreds of non-AKC breeds in the world -- some of them may never be seen in the US, but others are very popular and they need to be discussed.
More serious than the fact that Tortora leaves out breeds is the fact that his breed profiles are badly out-of-date: Breeds rise and fall in popularity amazingly fast, and that can seriously affect the temperament seen by the average pet owner. There are breeds that are dangerously popular now which were fairly rare 20 years ago, and some breeds that were badly damaged by overbreeding then have gone a long way toward recovery by now. In 1976, nobody had ever heard of a puppy-mill Rottweiler; in 1996, Irish Setters are happy-go-lucky bird dogs once again, and the sickly, unstable Setters that Tortora wrote about are seen less and less often. Tortora also combines several breeds into one profile whether they're truly similar breeds or not, and he occasionally uses very dubious readings of the breed standards to make up descriptions where he lacks personal experience: "According to the standard, Breed X seldom does Y, from which we may infer that they sometimes do Y" is hardly an adequate replacement for accurate information from people who know the breed well.
In spite of all the book's faults, I still recommend using Tortora's questionnaires to figure out what characteristics you need in a dog, especially if you don't have a lot of experience with dogs and you really don't know what characteristics you will be able to tolerate. But refer to Lowell and/or Walkowicz for a more complete and accurate set of breed descriptions.
In looking at other dog books -- and at information from breed clubs and advice from fanciers, for that matter -- look for honest information about activity and temperament, not just about sizes, coats, and colors.
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