Customer Reviews

Alaskan Trails: Siberian Dogs

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

If you are starting out with the German Shepherd dog from scratch, then this is the book for you. Fred Lanting covers everything from conformation to conditions that can be associated with the breed. Instead of buying several different books, this one covers all basis. A very good book even for the experienced German Shepherd lover.

Unfortunately, Fred Lanting manages to loose his credibility on the first two pages of the first chapter of this book.

He discusses the origin of dogs in the light of recent DNA studies and the like, even citing a few(serious) scientific publications. Nevertheless, he hapily mixes in his own religous beliefs without any notice, warning or reference whatsoever. Like "...devolutionary changes between Creation and the Flood", "...Noah's dog", "...devolve rather than evolve".

It's a pitty that the book gets such an unfortunate start, as the rest of it appears much more serious. Nevertheless, I disagree with the other reviewers on the matter that the book would be 'total'.

Lanting is a conformance judge, and this shows, in the good and the bad. To me the largest disappointment with the book was that working dog lines are practically completely omitted. In the 360 text-filled large format pages of the book, only one third of a page is given to the discussion of "working lines" (in quotation marks).

A chapter of the book is devoted to'The Winners'. A large number of individual winners of US and German conformance shows are presented. But, it's telling that there's not a word about Schutzhund Siegers here.

Fortunately, at Schutzhund trials are at least described in some detail elsewhere in the book. After all, the Schutzhund trial is a basic and originally breed specific tool for measuring the breeding quality of German Shepherd Dogs.

Considering that the German Shepherd Dog is explicitely a working dog, I find that the emphase on shows is unfortunate. It is also surprizing, as it seems that Lanting has contributed extensively to the excellent site ..., where, amongst other things, the famous words of Max von Stephanitz are quoted: "A pleasing appearance is desirable, but it can NOT put the dog's working ability into question!" and "German Shepherd breeding is Working Dog breeding, or it is not German Shepherd breeding".

As far as I can see, Lanting does however a good work on other matters, like when describing the anatomy and motion of GSDs and when explaining conformance criteria.

There's also an extensive discussion of health, nutrition and so forth. Such subjects are largely not that specific to GSDs, and good discussions can be found elsewhere in veterinary texts etc. Actually, more than half the book is in my opinion superflous for a breed specific text (and consequently didn't bother to read those parts).

Breeding etc is also extensively covered, including the 'Basics of Genetics'. Considering that Lanting didn't do too well in science in the beginning of the book, I can't help being more than a bit skeptic whether he got it straight here. At any rate, basic genetics is a matter better left to a biology text book than a book about German Shepherd Dogs.

I have "totally" enjoyed this book and will keep this book in the library forever. It is packed with so much knowledge from the author. He covers every avenue regarding this breed of dog from showing, working, breeding, raising, feeding, health, and much more. This book is more that worth the price you will pay. However, I only rated it with 4 stars because I wish more of the pictures of this beautiful breed were in colour.

This book is indeed the Total book of German Shepherd Dogs. There are too many good things about this book to mention, which confirms Mr Lanting as perhaps the greatest authority on GSDs today. If you can, buy this book NOW, even if you have to forsake other things to do so. If you can't, get it as a birthday or religious festival gift! Everyone who loves these dogs should have this book.

The italicized comments in the reviews, about the book being unavailable are confusing to me, and maybe it is confusing to many people. The book indeed IS available... and good for you, too! :-)

I borrowed this book from a good friend and I read it out aloud to my GSD Max every night when we went to bed - about a couple of chapters each night. I thought it was interesting and informative and I wanted his opinion - as possibly the best and most intelligent GSD currently extant on planet earth - but Max just fell asleep significantly faster than usual.
PS. He did groan slightly a couple of times.