Showing posts with label dogs. Show all posts
Showing posts with label dogs. Show all posts

Sunday, May 31, 2015

I Want a Dog by Darcy Pattison


Title: I Want a Dog
Author: Darcy Pattison
Publisher: Mims House
Rating: WORTHY!

Illustrated by Ewa O'Neill.

This is a charming, entertaining, cutely illustrated, and educational book for young children to help them understand the importance of some real thought if you want a pet dog. Both the main character, who remains nameless (his essay has no name or date yet he still gets an A!), and his cousin Mellie want a pet dog, and they have to write an opinion essay - researched carefully - on what kind of dog they want. Note that the text was a little hard to read on a smart phone - even one with a large screen - so you'd want to get this in print form or read it on a larger format ebook reader.

Do they want a big one or a little one? Do they want it energetic or more sedate? Do they want want which needs a lot or a little exercise? Lots of play or not so much? Do they have other pets which might be a consideration if there's a dog running around the house? One question which isn't asked, and it's an important omission: Are there babies or very young children in the household? Some breeds are not good with toddlers and babies.

Do they want a dog which is easy to train? Do they want a guard dog? One which needs lots of grooming? There were a lot of good questions asked, but also some important ones were missed as I've noted above and want to discuss here, too. No consideration is given to how the dog will be housed. Do you live in a large house with a yard, where a large dog would be fine, or does your family rent an apartment where a large dog might not be welcomed by the owner?

Another consideration which was missed was whether the dog is expensive to feed and take care of, or inexpensive? All dogs need shots and visits to the vet for annual check-ups, but smaller dogs eat a lot less than large ones. Will it need to be spayed or neutered? The answer, if you're in any doubt, is yes! Is there a secure place in the home where the puppy can be left when the family is out for a short time - so it doesn't get into things and chew your shoes up? Who will take care of the dog when the family goes on vacation? Is a barking dog going to be a problem in your neck of the woods? What kind of treatments will it need to prevent fleas?

I would have liked to have seen more covered, but the most important thing which was not covered was safety. Is this a breed which has a track record of aggression? In the illustrations of "10 popular dog breeds" I saw a Bulldog and a Rottweiler. Both of these breeds can be unpredictably aggressive.

Bulldogs are part of a larger group of dogs collectively known as pit bulls. And while not all such dogs are bad, these and Rottweilers are responsible for three-quarters of the recorded attacks upon people, and most of their victims are the very young and also the elderly. Pit bulls kill an American about every three weeks on average. Fifty percent of the time, it's the aggressive dog's owner or a member of the owner's family who is the victim.

Everyone can offer anecdotal stories of a truly family-friendly dog who is a member of these groups, but the hard statistics show that anecdote isn't the same as having the facts before you, so be sure to thoroughly research the breed you plan on adopting. And know that it is an adoption. This is a real family member, not a toy or a show-piece or a short-term fad.

That said, this is a great start for wising kids up to some very important aspects of pet ownership, which if taken to heart can bring a dear companion into your life which you will also take into heart. I recommend this book as a starting point for making that journey into the bigger world of caring and responsibility. And don't forget, pets tend to have a lot shorter lifespan than humans, so it's a good idea to educate children to that, too. Love them dearly while they're there with you, and it's a lot easier to bear their departure. Trust me. And good luck!


Tuesday, May 13, 2014

It's NOT Just a Dog! by Pam Torres


Title: It's NOT Just a Dog!
Author: Pam Torres
Publisher: Legacy Media Press
Rating: worthy!


DISCLOSURE: Unlike the majority of reviews in this blog, I've neither bought this book nor borrowed it from the library. This is a "galley" copy ebook, supplied by Net Galley. I'm not receiving (nor will I expect to receive or accept) remuneration for this review.

Tomorrow! Russ Ryan, author of It's Just a Dog goes paw to paw with with Pam Torres, author of It's NOT Just a Dog!

The first thing I noticed about this novel is how poorly formatted it is for the Kindle; indeed, it's not formatted at all, at least for my rather antiquated model. There are words which run together (which any spell-checker ought to catch), and lines which are broken half-way along. Periodically the author's name appeared, presumably snitched from the page header, but in the Kindle, it was randomly appearing in the text at various places on the screen. Hopefully those issues will not be a problem in the final version of this novel.

For some reason, perhaps to try and connect with the youth generation, the author decided to post hash-tagged comments randomly in the text, as a short-hand indicating the narrator's state of mind, but these were a fail for me, especially in the Kindle where they ran into the rest of the text. They seemed out of place, and much more like a gimmick than an integral part of the story.

Maybe others will like them, but I have to wonder how many people of this age (11) are actually involved in Twitter. I don't use it myself. Twitter is for twits! I liked the take on it in the Doctor Who Episode The Bells of Saint John where the Doctor says, "This whole world is swimming in wi-fi; we're living in a wi-fi soup. Suppose something got inside it? Suppose there was something living in the wi-fi, harvesting human minds; extracting! Imagine that: human souls trapped like flies in the World Wide Web, stuck forever, crying out for help!" whereupon his companion, Clara responds immediately: "Isn't that basically Twitter?". I laughed my patootie off at that one.

But I digress. As usual. You know, if I were to tally-up the number of times I digressed...but I digress again! So, having said all that, and with some reservations about eleven-year-olds becoming involved in directly investigating dangerous men who are training dogs to fight, I actually enjoyed the story rather a lot, and thought that it was a perfectly fine and interesting yarn. There was lots going on, interesting and gripping situations arising, and there was a significant educational content.

The basic story is that of Madison, and 11 year old who lives with her dad and her pet dog Lilly, and who, with her friend Cooper (what's with all this last name as first name stuff?!) is trying to set up their dog-walking "business". Madison works as a volunteer at a pet shelter run by a family friend, which is evidently falling on hard times. In place of a regular birthday party, which Madison really didn't want, she holds a fund-raiser for the shelter, but the collection box (and all the money in it) is stolen. I don't recall reading where that was ever resolved, which is odd. Maybe I missed it.

As the story progresses, we learn more and more more a local dog-fighting ring, where brutal men train-up brutal dogs to fight each other and the men wager a lot of money on outcomes. Madison gets more involved in investigating this than I felt comfortable with, but at least when she gets out of the scrape she was in, she has the smarts to put this into the hands of the law, where it belongs, so while I had a few uncomfortable moments reading this, her heart was in the right place, and she made some smart decisions, which is commendable.

Indeed, there were portions of this novel where Madison seemed a lot older than 11, but the issue isn't whether it's believable and realistic to me, so much as whether it's something an eleven-year-old can read, enjoy, and learn from, and I think I would have loved this novel at that age. Not only does it offer a fun and thrilling adventure with some unnervingly dangerous situations, it also educates about pet issues: dogs are not to be taken lightly, and are living, feeling beings who need love and care, so I'd give it five stars for that.

In short, I recommend this novel for appropriate age levels (chronological or developmental!)