The Art of Raising a Puppy | The Monks of New Skete

The Art of Raising a Puppy | The Monks of New Skete | Wonderful addition to puppy training collection

books:

The Art of Raising...

	The Art of Raising a Puppy The Monks of New Skete Little, Brown and Company, 1991 - 274 pages average customer review:based on 181 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

A must own

No one should get a puppy before reading this book.

Best no-nonsense approach to raising a puppy. I have had many dogs in my life and I still learned stuff from this book.

Wonderful addition to puppy training collection

I love this book. It is well written and full of smart advice. The beginning chapters about puppy birth and development are beautiful and a welcome change from the bland how-to books. I don't think this or any book is going to teach you how to raise a great dog all on it's own. But this book, teamed with others and real life instruction in a puppy class, will do you a world of good. Although some of it's ideas, specifically about the Alpha wolf, have now been disproved the heart of the book is still valid and I highly recommend it.

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A "Must Have" for anyone with a puppy

This is the best book I've found on raising a puppy, by far. It's easy to read, the instructions are clear, the approach is humane, and the monks add a touch of philosophy that fills the book out nicely. As we've followed the monk's approach our puppy has learned and behaved exactly as
the monks said he would. It's made for a happier puppy and a happy family all around. We've found several dog trainers who use the monk's approach with great success. Excellent puppy traininng book!

Must read for any pet owner

Even if someone does not have a dog, I'd recommend this book to any pet owner. The "Big Idea" of this book is that "obedience" actually translates into "to listen" and "discipline" actually means to teach.

The Monks emphasize that their is a relationship (they would say a divine relationship) between a dog and his owner...but that relationship is based upon mutuality...a mutuality of respect and responsiveness. (Kind of a nice way to look at human relationships as well.)

Flowing from this is that the owner has a responsibility to be a thoughtful, kind teacher and to attentively "listen" to their dog...not to "correct", not "punish", but to understand their dog and to teach their dog with respect and kindness.

If you have an opportunity to view the Monks DVD or VHS on this topic you can see the love and understanding these men have for their dogs...they aren't simply "training", they have a deep and profound relationship with their dogs.

This is not only a "dog training" book, this is a great book on how to relate to all living creatures.

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Puppy raising DOGma from the Monks...

Let me begin by saying that I am not an expert on this topic, but I love my puppy... and feel I need to be.

The merits of this book is that it documents the THINKING, experience and methodology of a group of monks who've dedicated their lives to raising German Shephards... the downside is that it ONLY discusses their method, and does not take into account any others - - of course, this is not a fault of the book - - they are simply describing their approach (which they feel happens to be right, and all others wrong), but while their method is not "radical", I'm wondering if the method is really for everybody and all dogs... (The method, incidentally is somewhat orthodox leash training - - and does not use treats as rewards... I worry that some people might get out of hand with the POP-no's, and it may not be for PEOPLE who might confuse the corrective associations with acts of utter dominance and intimidation! Unfortunately, in reading a book, how can a person's leash technique be corrected. In the end, at one extreme of the scale the monks warn against coddling and spoiling the dog... but on the other hand, we don't want to traumatize it either!)
another point: their writing style is easy to understand, but at the same time a bit dry (no warm and funny anecdotes, or as another reviewer elsewhere said "psychobabble") - - again, a plus or minus depending upon how you look at it.

In the end, the fact that this book does DOCUMENT in detail the process of how they raise their pups makes it GREAT reading... however I think the key caveat is that it should be supplemented with other reading...

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