Customer Reviews

Australian Cattle Dogs (New Owner's Guide To...)

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

 

 

I highly recommend this book. It provides everything that you need to know about your Cattle Dog. It has great detail/history, explanations, and it's easy to understand. I've followed the instructions and training tips that have been provided in this book to raise, and train my 12 week old Cattle Dog. The results have been outstanding. My puppy is responding just as the book stated that he would. Goodluck, it's worth your money!!

Narelle has done a wonderful job with this book, updating the older version with new photos and relevant information. The book is filled with wonderful pictures of many Australian Cattle Dogs and puppies and shows them herding, playing, sleeping, in the show ring, and doing agility and obedience work. I particularly love the picture of a wonderful blue cattledog named Darcy sleeping on the couch with one of her owners, Rick Williams, on page 130! Although Australian Cattle Dogs are not a breed for everyone because of their high energy level and high intellengence coupled with the need to herd things, the book gives a well-rounded view of the breed. Really a fun book and highly reccomended!

We recently adopted a cattledog mix, going in blind, knowing nothing about the breed. This book was an excellent eye opener and helped overcome a lot of obstacles that may have otherwise caused us to reconsider our choice of puppy.

There he was. A cute little red and white puppy with big brown eyes. He melted my heart instantly. This was the first time in over twelve years that I had been completely bowled over by a dog. I had a dog, a beautiful spaniel/terrier mix that went by the name of Topper. She was my pride and joy and when I had to put her to sleep I really thought I was never going to be taken in by another dog until I saw him.

I really didn't ask any questions about this dog. I didn't even know it was a male until I got him home. We named him "Bongo" because before he took off running, he beat the ground with his paws. Speaking of paws, all my friends' looked at them and told me he was going to be huge. I refused to believe it. Not my baby. Maybe he would weigh 35...40 lbs tops.

Little did we know that our baby was part Mastadon. In less than aweek he grew three inches in all directions. The solid white parts were giving way to little red freckles, the angelic look he used to give me in the morning was becoming steadily more demonic and at the end of a month, we had something on our hands that was about as friendly as a Tazmanian Devil.

What the hell kind of dog is this, anyway?

We had a friend tell us that Bongo was an Australian Cattle Dog. Known for their inexhaustive energy stores. This dog was used to rounding up cattle and then after it rounded up a few hundred steers, it wanted to fetch a few dozen times and then maybe go on a brisk twenty mile hike. The dog was literally buzzing from morning to night.

And tempermental...oh man, you don't know the half of it. He would flip his dog dish and grumble when he was disatisfied, he'd yell at the cats and push them over with his extra large head, he'd try and knock my feet out from under me all while getting bigger and bigger and bigger.

We went to the bookstore one day and loaded up our arms with all kinds of reading materials. This book plainly says that the cattledog is a completely different kind of dog. No kidding. We even wanted Cesar Milan to pay a housecall. We were running out of patience, but it turned out, that's exactly what Bongo needed and to be honest, we did too. We took this little guy in not even knowing what to expect. It was kind of unfair to him. But I really was beginning to fall in love with him, even though a few times I wanted to strangle the thing.

Two years later, and after making this book (along with a few others) our Bible, we have a beautiful dog. He's kind, he's gentle, he's loaded with personality and he is just a great addition to our world. This book and its advice works, but you must work with your dog on a regular and consistent basis. You must be willing to know that yes, he is part of the family, but he is still a dog. He's not a human. He's a dog and he wants to be treated like one. He wants boundaries, discipline, affection, and most of all he wants you to notice him. This is not the kind of dog that should be left alone to his own devices, that is unless you want your backyard to look like the moon's surface, your garden hoses to be perforated, and your trees gnawed down to little nubs. You must be willing to give your heart, your soul, and your mind to this breed and I promise you, you will get something incredible in return.

I love my dog. In fact, when I take my dog out for a walk, I just cannot believe why other people would settle for such ugly stupid dogs when they could have something beautiful and wonderful like my beautiful Bongo-Boy.

No, I'm not biased...why?

Get the dog you deserve with the help of this book!

Peace & Blessings...

This book is definitely for someone wanting an ACD show dog. Very detailed as to the requirements for the AKC requirements. The history of the ACD is good, but overall, I was a little disappointed in the overall content of the book and didn't feel that it really helped me understand the responsibility of owning an ACD.

this book seemed to offer more of the breed standards than anything else. I thought it would share some training tips and agression issues.

It's okay - but if you have ever read a dog book - it's about what is here. Gives a little insight to the breed, but you can "google" and get the same.

I had wanted a book that was more detailed, that explained everything about the cattle dog. The book does not do that, it is a very brief summary of their habits.

Most of this book contains some information that a first time owner would find useful. I would have like to see some more information in the behavior section and on the breed characteristics. I did find it appalling that they said some owner considered euthanasia an option for some overly agressive dogs (What kind of dog person writes that in their book).

good book .. nothing to write home about .. a bit wordy .. a lot of history that I did not care about, I just wanted a good manual ..