What All Good Dogs Should Know: The Sensible Way to Train

While such recent entries into the dog obedience market as Linda Colflesh's Making Friends , Bashkim Dibra's Dog Training by Bash and the Monks of New Skete's The Art of Raising a Puppy wow the canine-happy with authorial charm and painstaking thoroughness, this volume aims to please by virtue of its succinct, pared-down approach. Volhard and Bartlett, the author and illustrator, respectively, of Teaching Dog Obedience Classes , march the reader through exercises designed to produce a ``good'' dog: i.e., one that is housetrained, comes when called, has no bad habits, stays when told and does not pull when walked. However, they may overestimate their audience. Only a novice owner who is endowed with unusual powers of deduction will be able to fruitfully apply directions like ``Distract and do something pleasant for the dog.'' Devotees of training manuals, on the other hand, may pick up some worthwhile tips: reinforce your status as leader by having the dog sit and stay when you need to open the door. Illustrations not seen by PW. (Apr.)