Man's Best Friend: Annals of the Dog-Human Relationship

This is a very useful and informative book about dogs and why AKC breeds have so many health problems: diabetes, bad hips, seizures, etc.

This is another book review by Wolfie and Kansas, the boonie dogs from Toto, Guam. When we saw the fetching picture on the cover of "Dog's Best Friend", we thought the book would be primarily about dogs. Actually, the book is more about the humans who breed, train and work and play with dogs. While we think a concentration on dogs would have been more interesting, the sections on these humans are generally pretty good. The book also contains some fascinating history of the dog-human relationship, and even a couple mentions of our island.While the individual humans profiled in this book almost all qualify as dogs' best friends, the theme running through this book is that many humans and human organizations have been harming dogs. This harm is done in two ways. First, humans have a negative effect on dog behavior through misguided and cruel training. Author Mark Derr comes close to agreeing with our position that there is no such thing as a bad dog. There are only good dogs trained by bad humans. We do have some reservations about Derr's opinions as to what constitutes "good" or "bad" dog behavior. For example, Derr agrees with our noncanine animal companions of primate derivation that chasing cars is "bad".Author Derr also asserts that humans harm dogs genetically by inbreeding purebreds. Derr praises the hybrid vigor of mixed-breed dogs, i.e.--us! Indeed, the physical description of "the perfect dog" in the final chapter of "Dog's Best Friend" is very close to a description of Wolfie.We have seen Derr's theories about the genetic superiority of boonie dogs confirmed here in Toto. Foolish humans here spend hundreds or even thousands of dollars to import purebreds, who die within a rew weeks of exposure to local parasites that we barely notice. Meanwhile, boonie dogs are often sent to the slammer ("shelter") to be killed ("put to sleep") or broken ("fixed"). Hopefully humans will read this important book, stop overbreeding purebreds, and give us boonie dogs good homes in exchange for the companionship and protection that we can provide so well

This book is certain to raise howls from the members of the AKC! It is scathing in its discussion of breed registration and the responsibility of the AKC in the production of unfit animals. Any person looking for a pure bred pet must read this first. The book brings to mainline dog lovers the knowledge serious dog trainers have been saying to each other for some time- breeding "for Pretty" damages the animals. There is room for debate on several of Mr. Derr's contentions, but by and large he has brought important information to light that anyone loving dogs should be concerned about. He has also done it in a compelling fashion without pedantics.