by Jill Abramson, 242 pages
As an obsessed dog lover, I read most of the new dog-centric memoirs when they come out. A story about a beautiful blonde golden retriever puppy named Scout sucked me in right away. The author is an editor at the New York Times, so she has access to all sorts of dog training experiences and advice from professionals. Scout gets into hilarious situations and familiar puppy problems arise but the author and her husband manage to raise a beautiful, well-mannered golden. Abramson justifies their purchase of a puppy from a breeder (rather than adopting a shelter or rescued dog) by claiming her husband was obsessed with the light blonde variant of British Goldens. I'm not sure that defense holds water, but as someone who is also a sucker for darling puppies, I can understand that weakness. (Five of the seven dogs we've had were rescued sight hounds.) I found one of the most interesting parts of the book were her comments about the current controversy about the different training methods of Cesar Millan (The Dog Whisperer on NatGeo) who primarily uses dominance and positive reinforcement or clicker training as shown by trainer Victoria Stilwell (It's Me or the Dog on Animal Planet). I lean toward the positive/reward training since it seems to work best for my dogs. So, all in all, if you like reading dog books by Jon Katz or Marley and Me, you will probably enjoy The Puppy Diaries.
As an obsessed dog lover, I read most of the new dog-centric memoirs when they come out. A story about a beautiful blonde golden retriever puppy named Scout sucked me in right away. The author is an editor at the New York Times, so she has access to all sorts of dog training experiences and advice from professionals. Scout gets into hilarious situations and familiar puppy problems arise but the author and her husband manage to raise a beautiful, well-mannered golden. Abramson justifies their purchase of a puppy from a breeder (rather than adopting a shelter or rescued dog) by claiming her husband was obsessed with the light blonde variant of British Goldens. I'm not sure that defense holds water, but as someone who is also a sucker for darling puppies, I can understand that weakness. (Five of the seven dogs we've had were rescued sight hounds.) I found one of the most interesting parts of the book were her comments about the current controversy about the different training methods of Cesar Millan (The Dog Whisperer on NatGeo) who primarily uses dominance and positive reinforcement or clicker training as shown by trainer Victoria Stilwell (It's Me or the Dog on Animal Planet). I lean toward the positive/reward training since it seems to work best for my dogs. So, all in all, if you like reading dog books by Jon Katz or Marley and Me, you will probably enjoy The Puppy Diaries.
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