What Dog?: A Guide to Help New Owners Select the Right Breed for Their Lifestyle

Dogs have a direct line to the hearts of most animal lovers. Those doleful eyes, that winning expression, that wagging tail - it's all too easy to fall under the spell of a canine charmer and to let cool reason fly out of the window when faced with a creature that pushes all your emotional buttons. But, in the familiar phrase, let the buyer beware! It's not good falling for a dog, and then discovering a few weeks later that you hadn't bargained for the fact that it needs grooming for an hour every day, or imagining that a leisurely walk to the end of the road and back will satisfy the exercise demands of a dog that can run for hours. What prospective owners of a new dog really need is an honest and in-depth portrait of the breed that highlights all its positive characteristics, but which also points out potential shortcomings or behavioural aspects of the breed that may come into conflict with their own chosen lifestyle. What Dog? is precisely that - a guide to the hundred most popular breeds of dog that highlights their individual characters and which provides welcome advice on how well they fit into a home, how much exercise they need, how much grooming, how amenable they are to training, etc., etc. Each breed is beautifully illustrated, both adult dogs and puppies being pictured, while a colour bar-chart provides at-a-glance visual reference about seven of the most important character traits.