I’ve got to say it: This thin, undersized, 1987 hardcover book has 118 semi-glossy pages, many of which have a color photo. Some breed pages have no photo.
Note that there is a section of the book that is superfluous: pages 55-74. These pages have 3-5 color hand-drawings of dog breeds on these pages, while some of the entry pages with color photos of dogs lack even a thumbnail photo. The entry pages that do not have a thumbnail, have an expanded photo on these pages. This is confusing. Pages 55-74 should be removed and a color photo thumbnail should be in EVERY breed entry. With thumbnails that have exact color photos of dogs, why were there color hand-drawings in pages 55-74? ALL of these should be color photos – not a mix of photos and hand-drawings.
There may have been an editorial reason why some of this happened: the breed entry pages that were totally filled with information had no room on the page for a thumbnail, so the editor did not include one in entries that were information-heavy.
The solution would have been to put all thumbnails at the top right of the breed entry page, instead of the 2 hand-drawn graphics of a black and white dog (also superfluous); these are in the same location, at the top, as the ‘Good Points’ and ‘Take Heed’ information box. Another solution would have been to have a book with larger pages.
Note that at the top of the ‘Contents’ page, the beginning information states that the breeds are listed, according to their weight, from light to heavier. It also lists in bold the page number for the breeds in the superfluous insert pages, 55-74. However, the Small German Spitz, the Stabyhoun, the Wetterhoun, the Basset Griffon, and the Wachtelhound are all missing the larger color hand-drawings. Owners who have or want to acquire these dogs would be angry that the book left out a larger hand-drawn graphic of their dogs.
There is also no information given about the author and what qualifies her to write this book.
What I do like about this book, however, is the consistency of breed information, across each entry. As I mentioned above, the top area contains ‘Good Points’ and ‘Take Heed’ information box.
Under that, however, at the beginning, there is some general information about the breed, but there is no heading, like the rest of the page. This area is ‘General Information’ and should be marked as such, for uniformity. It seems that an editor was lacking before this book went to be published.
The rest of the breed entry headings are: ‘Size’ (given in metric and US measurements), ‘Exercise’, Grooming’, ‘Feeding’, and ‘Origin and History’.
The author is Joan Palmer.
The publisher is Tetra Press/ Salamander Books, Ltd., London.
There is an ‘Introduction’ from pages 6-13.
Following this is the ‘Contents’, with the dog breeds.
At the end is the ‘Index’.
However, the Bibliography, a standard book section is missing. A Bibliography includes a good selection of: magazines, books, videos, films, (web sites).
This book has many editorial problems that need to be fixed. I look forward to seeing a revision of this book, which could be a good one.
Please see my review for an outstanding breed book:
“The Mini-Atlas of Dog Breeds”: https://www.amazon.com/Mini-Atlas-Dog-Breeds-Andrew-Prisco/dp/0866220917/ref=cm_cr_othr_d_product_top?ie=UTF8
The Mini-Atlas of Dog Breeds
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