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A review by dajenny
How to Raise the Perfect Dog: Through Puppyhood and Beyond by Cesar Millan
2.0
Eh. This was ok, I suppose, though I felt as though the first half of the book really should be titled "How to Choose the Perfect Dog". He spends an inordinate amount of time describing his process for selecting the four puppies he was going to raise as he wrote this book, and, while somewhat interesting, not everyone is starting with the (expensive!) purebred, perfect-temperament puppy.
The second half of the book had some more practical advice, but I found it too general. He states things in a matter-of-fact, "if you do this, then your dog will respond like this" kind of way, with no kind of advice on how to handle things if your dog does something different.
The amount of time, energy, and dollars he expects the average person to spend on their dog seemed extreme to me as well. We take good care of our puppy and we give him the attention he needs, but at the end of the day, he is a dog, not a person. Cesar talks about building agility courses or obstacle courses in the backyard. A few times, he says that no medical bill is too high when it comes to the well-being of our dogs. At one point, he says something to the effect of "the one moral outrage is that there are so many unwanted dogs" (I returned the book to the library, so I can't give the exact quote), and another time he compares raising a dog to raising a kid (though he does admit that parenting is the more difficult of the two tasks). I know this mindset is held by many dog-people, and I probably should expect it from somebody who makes his living the way Cesar does, but it doesn't fit with our family or lifestyle.
The second half of the book had some more practical advice, but I found it too general. He states things in a matter-of-fact, "if you do this, then your dog will respond like this" kind of way, with no kind of advice on how to handle things if your dog does something different.
The amount of time, energy, and dollars he expects the average person to spend on their dog seemed extreme to me as well. We take good care of our puppy and we give him the attention he needs, but at the end of the day, he is a dog, not a person. Cesar talks about building agility courses or obstacle courses in the backyard. A few times, he says that no medical bill is too high when it comes to the well-being of our dogs. At one point, he says something to the effect of "the one moral outrage is that there are so many unwanted dogs" (I returned the book to the library, so I can't give the exact quote), and another time he compares raising a dog to raising a kid (though he does admit that parenting is the more difficult of the two tasks). I know this mindset is held by many dog-people, and I probably should expect it from somebody who makes his living the way Cesar does, but it doesn't fit with our family or lifestyle.