Books & Magazines

Hound Health Handbook: The Definitive Guide to Keeping Your Dog Happy, Healthy & Active Review

 “health profiles for 130 breeds” 2009-07-15
By Bette B. Prater (okc,ok,usa)
Dr. Betsy Brevitz, DVM tells you in 19 chapters

EVERYTHING you need to know about caring for your dog.

Choosing and raising a puppy. Keeping a senior dog healthy.

Allergies,vomiting,diarrhea,worms,fleas,ticks,mental health,

eye diseases,their heart,colds,diabetes,seizures,cancer and

last of all how to handle their DEATH. I keep this book by

my bed and refer to it often. I have 3 dogs. It is very helpful.

This would make a great XMAS/birthday gift for all your

friends with dogs.

 “Great handbook!” 2008-09-30
By Katerina O. (New York City)
This handbook is fantastic. It’s the go-to for EVERYTHING dog–not just health issues (bee stings, dog stings, seizures–all things my puppies had…) but also grooming, feeding, housebreaking, etc… I really like how it lays out clearly when to go to the vet immediately, when to just call the vet, and when to just take care of the issue at home. I’m buying a copy for my sister who just got a dog. It’s my #1 doggie book–and I have almost a whole shelf of them.

 “Informative at a good price!” 2008-01-23
By JuneBug
I love this book! It’s easy to understand and offers ALOT of information. I found out about it through “Animal Wellness Magazine” and decided to look it up on Amazon… luckily they sell it!! The book is priced very reasonable for all the information it packs. I collect dog books and this is one that should be added to ANY dog owners collection. If you don’t have a single dog book or one on dog health – then you should buy this one! The index makes it easy to find a topic quickly.

Yappy Reading!

 “A Must Have” 2007-07-18
By C. Lou Who (Chapel Hill, NC)
This is a must have for any dog owner. It covers it all. From puppyhood to senior dogs (and resources for when your dog is gone), it tackles all the tough questions. It’s like the “What to Expect When You Are Expecting” series but for dogs or like WebMD for dogs.

Every time my dogs sneezes too many times, I pick up the book. If he’s panting too much, I pick up the book. It calms my fears and lets me know when I need to call the vet for things. We recently had to put our dog to sleep and it described the process step-by-step so we knew what to expect once we got to the vet office.

I really can’t say enough about this book other than I wish I had found it a few years earlier.

 “One of the best hound health guide books!” 2006-02-28
By L. Carol
This is one of the best and aptly name guidebooks offering credible advise on health, nutrition, common problems and prevention for hounds. Written by a writer-turned-vet, the book did exactly what the author had set out to do: “To save people from making unnecessary trips to the vet, and yet rush them in when their dogs really needed to be there”.

Having three dogs of my own, I could recount ad nauseam first-hand horror encounters with vets who were either too commercial or inexperienced or mediocre or all of the above: there was this one vet who told me something as ridiculous as neutering my dog would give him testicular cancer (huh?!); another who misdiagnosed the onset of ringworm as a mere scratch on its paw (later developed into full-blown skin infection afflicting me in the process); another who wanted to jump into operating on my dog following a mere bout of vomiting (the book discussed at length many useful home remedies before resolving to show up at the vet’s clinic!); and yet another who urged me to wait it out until my puppy had been through one or two heat cycles before getting her spayed for no apparent reason (the book brought to my attention this delay would increase the incidence of breast tumor by 28%, no different from a dog who was never spayed in her entire life!). More often than not, I have experienced vets who shoved me out of their consulting rooms in a little more than 5 minutes without first hearing out the history/symptoms in full or performed detailed enough physical examination before formalizing on some half-baked diagnosis. Call it a streak of bad luck but I have been through enough vets to know that the best thing you could do to your beloved pets is to equip yourself with as much knowledge as possible in both prevention – whipping up a wholesome diet, social and exercise program – and cure when the inevitable hits home – knowing how to tell the grass from the weed in your pursuit of a vet and the book does precisely that.

I do have reservations over the author’s advocacy over commercial pet food (fellow reviewers may wish to refer to Ann Martin’s “Food Pets Die For: Shocking Facts About Pet Food” and its sequel, “Protect Your Pet: More Shocking Facts” and learn why vets unanimously endorse pet food and Dr. Pitcairn’s Complete Guide to Natural Health for Dogs & Cats for recipes and holistic/alternative medicine). Having said that, this book is still highly recommended for its comprehensibility, readability and generosity of medical information from the viewpoint of an ethical and knowledgeable vet! A must-read!

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