Katz on Dogs: A Commonsense Guide to Training and Living with Dogs [Hardcover]

Jon Katz (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 4, 2005

In a nation where our love of dogs keeps growing and dog ownership has reached an all-time high, confusion about dogs and their behavioral problems is skyrocketing. Many dogs are out of control, untrained, chewing up furniture, taking medication for anxiety, and biting millions of people a year.

Now, in this groundbreaking new guide, Jon Katz, a leading authority on the human-canine bond, offers a powerful and practical philosophy for living with a dog, from the moment we decide to get one to the sad day when one dies. Conventional training methods often fail dog owners, but Katz argues that we know our dogs better than anyone else possibly could, and therefore we are well suited to train them. It is imperative, he says, that we think rationally and responsibly about how we choose, train, and live with the dogs we love, and the more we learn about ourselves, the better we can recognize their wonderful animal natures. Misinterpreting dogs is a profound obstacle to understanding them.

Katz believes that both people and dogs are unique–a chow differs from a Lab just as a city dweller differs from a farmer–and he describes how such individuality isn’t addressed by even the best and most popular training methods. Not every training theory is for everyone, notes Katz, but almost anyone can train a dog and live with him comfortably. Katz on Dogs is filled with no-nonsense advice and answers to such key questions as:

• What kind of dog should I have? Is there is a specific breed or kind of dog for my personality, family, or living situation?
• What is the best way to train a dog?
• Can I trust my vet?
• How often (and for how long) can a dog be left alone?
• Is it preferable to have only one dog, or are more better?
• What are the secrets to successful housebreaking?
• What are my dogs thinking, if anything?
• How can I walk my dog instead of having her walk me?
• Is it ever okay to give away a dog you love?
• When is it time to put my dog down?

Katz draws from his own experience, his interactions with thousands of dog owners, vets, breeders, dog rescue workers, trainers, and behaviorists, and he has tested his approach with volunteer dog owners around the country. Their helpful and often inspiring stories illustrate how all of us can live well with our dogs. You can do it, Katz contends. You can live a loving and harmonious life with your dog.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

As a journalist and columnist on the topic of dogs, and as a lifetime dog owner, Katz manages to breathe new life into the pet-care genre. Though occasionally preachy and redundant, the manual has an empathetic tone; Katz makes clear that he hasn't always been an expert: it was after living with many dogs and only after adopting "a demented border collie" that he was forced to "either learn how to train this hooligan or get rid of him." What Katz stresses above all is that every dog is different-due to breeding, environment and temperament, to name just a few factors-and therefore, every human-dog relationship varies. As a result, Katz's book says there can never be one universal, inflexible methodology for training-unlike most training manuals, which usually argue one practice is superior to others. Says Katz, "training methods fail... if they don't take into account the owner's psyche as well as the dog's." Despite these beliefs, Katz leans on positive reinforcement and offers numerous practical solutions to common behavioral problems. He reiterates that dogs are "comparatively simple animals" that we all too often personify-much to the detriment of the human-dog bond. Photos. Agent, Richard Abate.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist

Katz began as a reporter, columnist, and author of suburban detective mysteries, and had pretty much always had a dog. But when he began working out of his home, he got serious about dogs and dog training. The result was a series of superb dog books (A Dog Year, 2002, The New Work of Dogs, 2003, and The Dogs of Bedlam Farm, 2004) that explored the relationship between the author and his dogs as well as the place of dogs in human society. In his new book, Katz takes what he has learned from his dogs, other people's dogs, and various dog trainers, and synthesizes a commonsense approach to dog training. In 13 chapters he covers the basics--choosing a dog, why training matters, and basic training--as well as the more esoteric aspects of the dog-human relationship, including multiple-dog households, setting boundaries, and loving and losing dogs. Katz writes in a calm, measured tone (seeming to follow his own advice about calming a dog before training it) and fills the text with examples, both positive and negative. Nancy Bent
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 272 pages
• Publisher: Villard; First Edition edition (October 4, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1400064031
• ISBN-13: 978-1400064038
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.1 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (36 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,206,049 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Bedlam Farm in upstate New York is where I live, write and tend my animals - four dogs, two donkeys, two barn cats. The rambling old farmhouse was built in 1862; it's surrounded by pastures, streams and wooded hillsides, plus four barns and a milkhouse in various stages of disrepair.

I write books- memoirs, novels, short story collections, and beginning in 2011, children's books. I am also a photographer.

In my former life, before I grew preoccupied with sheepherding and moving manure around. I wanted to change my life and write more about the experience of living with and understanding animals.
I write novels and nonfiction books (I've written 20 books), along with columns and articles for Rolling Stone, Wired, the New York Times, and the website HotWired.
Coming to the farm turned out to be a Joseph Campbell style "Hero's Journey." I went off into some dark places, got divorced, struggled to face myself, and found someone to share my life.

My wife Maria Wulf is an artist, who specializes in fiber art. She works in the Studio Barn across the road from the farmhouse. Earlier this year, I thought briefly of selling Bedlam Farm. After getting married, we decided to stay here. My daughter Emma, a sportswriter living in Brooklyn, has written her own book about New York baseball. I publish a blog I love dearly - www.bedlafarm.com. My photos appear there daily. My dogs are Izzy, Lenore, Frieda and Rose, the working dog who helps me run the farm.

My writing life began with a novel - "Sign Off" - an unwittingly prescient story about the jarring changes in work and security.

This year - 2010 - I am returning to fiction. I've written a novel, "Rose In A Storm," about a border collie stranded on a farm in upstate New York during a terrible storm. I wrote this book in conjunction with some animal behaviorists who helped me enter the mind of a dog, and hopefully, be faithful to that. My first children's book "Meet The Dogs Of Bedlam Farm," will be published by Henry Holt next year. I have just finished a short story collection to be published next year by Villard/Random House.
In recent years, photography has become central to me as well as writing. I have been fortunate enough to have several gallery showings of my work, and also sell my photos as notecards through the Redux Gallery in Dorset, Vt.

I am also working on a book about animal grieving. Hopefully, it will be useful.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

76 of 84 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Practical, interesting, thoughtful training help, October 10, 2005

By 

HollyMartins (Brooklyn, NY) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Katz on Dogs: A Commonsense Guide to Training and Living with Dogs (Hardcover)

Jon Katz has for years now been writing books that are insightful, funny, and moving; this one is all of that, but also very practical. I've had dogs for a long time, and I wasn't really in the market for a training book. But looking it over, I found myself thinking about some of these issues in a new way -- there are some very practical tips in here. Not just on the basic stuff like housebreaking and walking, either, but also more generally on how to train your dog to be calm and responsive and pleasant to live with (while still understanding that dogs are dogs, not children). And the strategies here are nicely down the middle of the line between too harsh, like some training tactics can be, and not firm enough.

This book is more than just a how-to guide, though. As with Katz's earlier books, it's also got a lot of interesting points to make about the role of dogs in society, what the dog-human relationship is and what it should be. Much more thought, not to mention good writing, obviously went into this than goes into most books in the genre.

80 of 89 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Helped me settle into my life with dogs, October 25, 2005

By 

J. Shell - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Katz on Dogs: A Commonsense Guide to Training and Living with Dogs (Hardcover)

A single guy living in the city, I adopted a retired racing greyhound a couple of months ago. I had lived with a couple of dogs before (not my own) and long wanted one for myself. This feeling intensified this year, and I got myself into a situation to bring one home. I was fortunate to bring home a dog who was already well socialized with people, large dogs, and even had some experiences with cats, and was good on a leash. As she and I adapted into life together (aided by a good guide to the breed and particular situation of retired racers), things were OK. But they weren't great. Although she was food motivated, she gets distrustful and resists situations where there are treats involved at the same time I'm trying to grab or hold her. This has made some grooming difficult, and also some basic training. She charged her food bowl, beginning to eat before it was fully set down.

Initially, this either annoyed or frustrated me. And since she was good on her leash and good with people and fairly good around most animals (especially larger ones), I wondered if that was good enough. But something in my mind felt like it wasn't. Yet none of the training material I looked at really felt like it addressed our situation - our moods, upbringing, etc.

I came across a column by Jon Katz online (which was taken from this book) which basically said it's dangerous to put too much of our own emotions onto our dogs - to think that they're mad at us for going to work, for example. Being reminded that my dog was just a dog, no matter how lovable or personable she can be, was the nudge that I needed. Shortly after reading that article, I saw this book at the bookstore and picked it up.

This book does not provide any grand theory on dog training. It will not teach you how to teach your dog to sit, shake, or roll over. But it is an extremely helpful book because it teaches us - the humans - the importance of training. Training, according to Katz, is how we help dogs navigate our big and confusing world. Training is ongoing. A six week course or one week of focusing on 'sit' is a good thing, but it doesn't end there. Our dogs need boundaries, and they're often looking to us to figure out how to get through situations. Untrained dogs are the ones stealing food from the table, jumping on guests, and so on. It's our responsibility as dog owners to recognize this, including its impact on other people (people met on the street, visitors to the house, etc).

Throughout the book, Katz relays many stories about other dog owners and their successes, failures, or successes wrested from what seemed to be certain failure. Most of these stories convey the message that it's important to understand the animal, the breed, and so on. They also convey that there are probably many modern society thoughts that are just wrong. Crates, for example, are not inhumane - dogs are den creatures and often do fine when they have a small safe space that they can go to. Just because we might not like being cooped up in a small space does not mean that dogs don't like it.

Just from reading half of the book, I was able to understand my relationship with my new dog better, and was able to approach our training differently. In just a couple of days, I started having the results that eluded me in our first couple of months - she sits (not as easy or natural for greyhounds as in other species, but still a good command to know to get a dog in one spot and focused), and I can keep her from charging her food bowl until I'm ready. These are small successes, but they feel very important to me and it is very gratifying to see them working.

I don't think they would have happened without this book. The book basically changed my way of thinking and understanding our relationship, and that's all that was really needed.

There is a lot of other helpful information in this book. It covers choosing a dog - basically understanding what you're looking for in an animal and choosing breeds and suppliers that would fit into your life. It's going to be more challenging to keep an intense working breed like a Border Collie or Jack Russell Terrier alone in an apartment all day, for example. The book covers things to be thought about when bringing in a second or third dog ("two is a pair, three is a pack"). It covers knowing when to put a dog down.

I recommend this book to anyone contemplating bringing a dog into their lives, or anyone who has brought one in and feels like the magic promise of "the perfect dog" hasn't shown itself yet. The perfect dog doesn't exist, but by better understanding our relationship with dogs and understanding that their needs and wants are simpler than ours, we can have a richer life together. It's already started to work for me and my greyhound, and as I've stated, it was just just a small adjustment to my thinking that caused things to improve so much. For me, I believe it was just helpful to have a book that seemed to deal a lot with the human side of the human-dog relationship.

36 of 41 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Treat of a Book, October 13, 2005

By 

Casey Ellis (Los Altos, California) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Katz on Dogs: A Commonsense Guide to Training and Living with Dogs (Hardcover)

Last year I spent a considerable sum of money having a professional trainer work with my beautiful but extremely strong-willed border collie, Mac. I wish I'd had a copy of "Katz on Dogs" before I hired someone to do what I now believe I could have done -- and enjoyed doing -- on my own.
What I love about this book is the confidence Katz gives you to be innovative in your training methods so you can shape behavior that works for your dog and your living situation.
What my border collies love about the book is that they're getting a lot more treats these days as I put into practice what Katz preaches: training should be an on-going process throughout your dog's life.