Bandit: The Heart-Warming True Story of One Dog's Rescue from Death Row

Would not recommend unless you want to hear all her philosophical rantings. Enough! What I like is the picture of the dog on the cover.

This isn't a book about dog training, although it talks about that quite a bit. It's not even a book about dogs really, although it talks about dogs all the time. It's really about our relationships with dogs, how they fit into our lives and our society and our mythology. Hearne taught poetry at Yale, but her real calling seems to be dog training. Her writing is funny and dry and full of information, and sooner or later she'll say something that annoys you. But if you can't take a little annoyance you should have a dog. And she's probably only annoying you because you are carrying around some misconception about dogs.

I have owned and trained multiple breed of dogs and Ms Hearne is very right about the issue. This book should be mandatory to be read by anyone and everyone of the dumb politicians that come up with those stupid bans. This book is very true and is a must read, whether you are a dog owner (of any breed) or not.

Some people object to Vicki Hearne's writing style (smart girls can be annoying). Others feel her training methods were too harsh. But Vicki Hearne knew a great dog, and how to write about one. Be warned: This book is politically incorrect and may make you do something really stupid, like adopt a pit bull. Vicki Hearne is, after all, the one who said, "It is true that Pit Bulls grab and hold on. But what they most often grab and refuse to let go of is your heart, not your arm."

An extended and beautifully written book on an insight of Hannah Arendt's, that goodness that goes public turns into the worst sort of evil.Emmanuel Levinas, at the end of an essay on Heidegger's Nazism, ``The diabolical is not limited to the wickedness popular wisdom ascribes to it and whose malice, based on guile, is familiar and predictable in an adult culture. The diabolical is endowed with intelligence and enters where it will. To reject it, it is first necessary to refute it. Intellectual effort is needed to recognize it. Who can boast of having done so? Say what you will, the diabolical gives food for thought.''This book is some of that intellectual effort towards the future of dogs.

Ok, ok, Hearne can be annoying with the long philosophical musings. (She comes across as someone who's been made to feel small by academics and is putting on airs.) But, Honey, Vicki Hearne knows dogs. She also has a great gut instinct about people and tells this gripping story well. (Skip the "phiosophy" which seems weirdly inserted into this facinating story anyway.) Hearne has done the research. She understands and communicates the mydrid elements of the pit bull and dangerous dog hystaria. You'll come to the end of _Bandit: Dossier of a Dangerous Dog_, a well informed citizen on the issue of blanket, breed specific, dog bans. Your heart will be touched by old Bandit's story too. You might not take dog ownership quite so much for granted either. You may find (god forbid)you need this information in your own town. As for the reviews above mine... you have to understand (or admit) everybody's an expert when it comes to dogs. The backbiting in the dog world... well, it's no pun. Update 9/18/06: Vicki Hearn died a couple of years ago at way too young an age. Dogs have one less advocate.