Small Pet Care: How to Look After Your Rabbit, Guinea Pig, or Hamster [Hardcover]

Annabel Blackledge (Author)

Book Description

Age Level: 10 and up | Grade Level: 5 and up

Teaching children how to be responsible pet owners, DK's Small Pet Care guides are the most child-friendly guides to the key aspects of small pet care.

Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 10 and up
  
• Hardcover: 48 pages
• Publisher: Dorling Kindersley (May 30, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0756611040
• ISBN-13: 978-0756611040
• Product Dimensions: 10.1 x 7.6 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13.6 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 2.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,304,530 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars great pictures but a lot of inaccurate information, October 3, 2005

By 

R. Kelly Wagner "[e-mail]" (MD, United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Small Pet Care: How to Look After Your Rabbit, Guinea Pig, or Hamster (Hardcover)

This is a nicely produced book - too bad it's not a good one. Large photos on every page should convince everyone of the joy of owning a pet - there are many pictures of children playing with their pets, illustrative photos of both children and adults cleaning cages, and much more.

Unfortunately, even some of the pictures contain misinformation. For example, in the section on rabbits, the daily diet paragraph of text suggests "a handful of raw cabbage or a piece of celery should be plenty." And the photo shows not only many vegetables that will cause gas, such as cauliflower, it also shows a big wedge of iceberg lettuce. As every well-informed rabbit owner knows by now, iceberg lettuce is useless nutritionally, high enough in water to possibly give your rabbit diarrhea, and leaf lettuce is a much better idea. Celery is likewise not a great idea - the strings in it have been known to get caught between teeth, which can lead to malocclusion, and some rabbits have even choked on them.

The text for rabbits also suggests "stale crusts of whole-wheat bread" for treats. And the main advice for housing is an outdoor hutch, with barely a paragraph given to keeping your rabbit indoors as a house rabbit.

Incidentally, the book was written in England, so although there appears to be an effort made to write in English that will be understandable to Americans, there are some items that are still likely to be confusing for American children: breed names for some rabbits and guinea pigs are different; food pellets are differently shaped and colored than most American brands, and so on. Also, it should be noted, the English background probably contributes to the author's preference for keeping rabbits outdoors. The climate in England does not have the extremes that the much larger North American continent has. The weather in Buffalo, NY would be far too cold to keep your rabbit in an outdoor hutch all winter, and the weather in San Antonio, TX, far too hot in the summer - rabbits would die of heat stroke. The English background also shows in the mention of chipmunks as an alternative small pet; in most of the US, chipmunks are not only not pets, but you'd need a specific wildlife permit to be allowed to keep one.

The misinformation in the guinea pig section is just as extensive as the rabbit section. Again, vegetables are recommended that are known to cause gas, or to be nutritionally useless for guinea pigs, or to have caused other problems, and although the text briefly mentions that piggies need vitamin C, there is nothing at all pointing out which veggies and fruits are high in C. The emphasis, as with the rabbits, is on keeping guinea pigs in outdoor hutches, with barely a paragraph on indoor cages.

I do not know as much about hamsters as I do about guinea pigs and rabbits, so I can't tell whether all the information in the hamster section is valid. However, the "healthy treats" section especially recommends yogurt drops - which are mainly sugar and are NOT a healthy treat for any pet, despite the "yogurt" in their name.

There are some good points about this book: the great photos showing lots of interaction between kids and their pets, perhaps the book's strongest point. And for each pet, the section on toys and play has pictures of a great variety of toys, all of them appropriate for the pet, and many of them suggestions that an inexperienced pet owner wouldn't have thought of. Every pet has a lengthy section on seeing a vet, basic healthcare, signs of illness, and when to call a vet.

It's difficult for anyone to try to write a short book that covers several animals. It's best for the potential pet owner to choose a book that is all about ONE species of pet, and contains more details about that particular animal than a scattershot book like this. I would also suggest that anyone looking for a good book on pets check the country of original publication, and look for a recent copyright date. For most Americans, although this book is brand new, copyright 2005, it does not meet the other requirements of being specific to one pet and being specifically written for US conditions.