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8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Not what I was looking for, 26 Jul 2001
By A Customer
... It is very thick and looks promising, but it doesn't have much to offer. For one thing, just by glancing through the book it appears sort of "messy" and not well organized. The breeds are divided into British Dog Breeds and Other Breeds. This system makes it a bit difficult to find a certain breed from the book. On the other hand nearly 400 breeds are included, but then again each breed is presented in just a half a page - except for about a handful of breeds that were given a whole page (such as the poodle and the tibetan mastiff). The information provided for one breed is very very limited and focuses mainly on history and looks of the breed. Temperament is described mostly in just one or two words, so if you are considering buying this book to help you decide which breed your next dog should be, don't buy it. After all the temperament of the dog is usually the most important of its qualities. Also such important issues as does the breed like children and how well does it get along with other dogs and strangers, are completely left out of this book. Even a greater problem were the few factual errors I found in the book just by quickly flipping it through. As I live in Finland where you can easily find any of the five Finnish breeds presented in this book, it is easy for me to recognize them. I was amazed to see that two of the presented Finnish breeds were introduced with pictures of a wrong breed!! Karelian Bear Dog (which, by the way, is Karjalankarhukoira in Finnish with a j as the fourth letter, not Karalankarhukoira without it as the book claims) was given a completely wrong picture of a dog, that does not look at all like the breed really does. In fact the Reindeer Herder was given a picture of a Karelian Bear Dog. So, there is no picture of the Reindeer Herder at all and the Karelian Bear Dog is presented with a completely wrong picture. (In case someone disagrees with me and tries to claim the Reindeer Herder was introduced with a correct picture I must say that the Herder and the Karelian Bear Dog look remarkably alike, but if you look carefully you will see that for one thing the dog in this picture is too square-shaped to be a Reindeer Herder as claimed.) After all these complaints I have just presented, I must say that if you are simply looking for a book that will help you recognize different breeds and know one or two minor facts about them, this might be the book for you. But if you actually want some serious information or help in finding the ideal breed for you (as I did), this book will turn out to be completely useless.
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by Caroline Coile
by Gwen Bailey
by Peter Larkin
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