Book Review: If Your Dog Could Talk by Dr Bruce Fogle

It's time to review the second of my most recent three books.

Title: If Your Dog Could Talk (A Training Guide for Humans)
Author: Dr Bruce Fogle
ISBN: 1-4053-1174-6
Price: £9.99
Pages: 155

This is indeed a strange book. Strange in that, despite it's obvious objectives, it falls short in several ways. Having read it from cover to cover, I really and truly can't see why it was given either the main title of "If your dog could talk", or the subtitle of "A Training Guide for Humans". The fact is that is fails to address either to any worthy extent.

Presentation-wise it's excellent. Cleanly laid out, easy to read, and picture-rich. In fact, I couldn't help thinking that the latter quality was a deliberate ploy to disguise the lack of real educational content.

The question of "If your dog could talk", I presume, is supposed to be answered by the odd little "bubbles" of thought, where, for example, you might see a picture of two dogs looking at one another, with the bubble stating "Okay, I'm ready when you are.". Well, thank you very much Dr Fogle, that was very informative indeed.

After completing the book last night, I got to thinking about who would really benefit from this book. The truth is that I can't imagine any particular group would find anything it states as either helpful or enlightening. One possible exception might be aliens visiting our planet for the first time, wondering what those strange four-legged things were. Other than that, nobody.

There are undoubtedly books out there that meet the supposed dual-purpose of this book, far better and far more informatively. You will learn next to nothing about training, and even less about what your dog would be saying if it could talk. A very disappointing book that I just can't recommend to anyone.

Can't help but agree GSD Lover, I'm not a Bruce Fogle fan myself gor the very reasons you've laid out.

ditto that!
I have never seen anything by this author that makes much sense.

ditto again . Sorry but me too

Have to agree, I'm not fussed on any of Fogles to be honest, especially after seeing them on Crufts.

I didn't like Bruce Fogle, then his column in Dogs Today the other month was just about his son getting married...I don't buy the mag as a doggy version of 'hello'...sorry it made me like the man even less!

And who on earth gave his son a job as a presenter? Last years Crufts was the worse I've ever seen!! Maybe we should petition the KC to make sure they don't make the same mistake again?! lol

Hear hear Az

indeedy!!!!