Customer Reviews

Happy Hound: Develop a Great Relationship with Your Adopted Dog or Puppy

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What a complete joy this book provides!

There are lots of behavior and training books available, and most every one I've read leave me feeling totally incompetent as a pet owner. As much as I follow the prescriptive advice, problems still persist: barking, marking, and terrorizing the cats, to name just a few issues. Susan's clean writing style and total honesty about the ups and downs of finding the right balance in living with a pet conveys the feeling that you're sitting at a kitchen table together having a conversation. She lets you know that she's been there, and that many times it's a trial and error process of finding just the right approach that works for you and your dog.

More details are on my blog: [...]

Connie

Happy Hound by Susan Daffron is a great book for rescue groups to give to their new adopters. It gives the new owners of the rescue dog a very clear insight into the type of "baggage" nearly every rescue dog brings into a new home. This is different from the usual "how to" book that is written on teaching a new dog the desired behavior and manners in their new home. So many times a rescue group has no knowledge of a rescue dogs past so it's difficult to understand some of their puzzling behaviors. Susan's book will help solve some of these puzzles by helping you to understand the possible reasons for these behaviors.

I recommend it.
Sue Kabler
St. Louis Samoyed Rescue

"Happy Hound" is a good book for people living with rescue dogs or any dog, I might add. Using her own dogs as examples, Susan Daffron emphasizes that no two dogs are alike and that different training techniques will be necessary for different dogs. This is an important concept for people who have limited knowledge of breed characteristics and think that because their former dog behaved a certain way and was trained (or not) a certain way they expect a new dog to behave the same way.

"Happy Hound" has helpful advise about feeding, grooming, medical problems, house manners, etc to give readers an idea of the level of commitment required to raise a dog. And last but not least, the author emphasizes that it takes time and patience to raise a dog you can live with.
And, if you can't make a long term commitment for the life of the dog, you should consider not adopting.

I recommend it!

Carol Kinne
Rescue Volunteer in Central NY