How to Raise the Perfect Dog

Through Puppyhood and Beyond

By: Melissa Jo Peltier, Cesar Millan

Narrated by: John H. Mayer

Length: 9 hrs and 31 mins

Publisher's summary

For the millions of people every year who consider bringing a puppy into their lives - as well as those who have already brought a dog home - Cesar Millan, the preeminent dog behavior expert, says, "Yes, you can raise the perfect dog!" It all starts with the proper foundation in the early years. Here, Cesar tells you everything you need to know to create the best environment for a well-balanced dog in order to avoid behavior issues in the future, and shows you how to correct the most common behavior issues for young dogs.

Based on Cesar's own detailed experiences raising individual puppies from some of the most popular breeds, How to Raise the Perfect Dog is like having Cesar right beside you, as your own personal expert, coaching you and your dog from the first day of your life together.

Packed with new information aimed specifically at the particular needs of puppies and adolescents, and written in Cesar's friendly, accessible style, How to Raise the Perfect Dog answers all the most commonly asked questions and guides you towards a loving, satisfying life-long relationship with your best friend.

An Audible for Dogs Pick: Make your dog's day. Cesar Millan shares how audiobooks can make dogs happier and calmer. Learn more.

©2009 Cesar Millan (P)2009 Random House

A great primer on dog psychology

This is the world's "go to" for understanding dog psychology. This is a must-read for any dog owner. It is NOT a training book. It is rather a manual to how your dog's brain and psychology work - which will set you up for success in training.

I would definitely recommend this to everyone that wants to raise a dog.

Wonderful book if you are getting a new puppy!

Would you consider the audio edition of How to Raise the Perfect Dog to be better than the print version?

I love to be able to listen in the car on the way to work.

What does John H. Mayer bring to the story that you wouldn’t experience if you just read the book?

He did a very good job! Loved the voices he used talking from the dog's perspective.

Any additional comments?

I have listened to this book four times, and each time I learn something new!

Interesting but not exactly realistic

I acquired this book in the hopes of learning more about dog psychology and building a closer bond with my current dog. The experiment he conducts is under completely perfect circumstances. All milk mannered dogs from breeders and I feel like it would have been better to get dogs from shelters or at different ages and show that even if the pup has had a rougher start it can still be raised to be a great dog. Most people adopt or buy from pet stores and don’t always get puppies. I guess I just would have liked to see more variation on
The dogs because the only thing that was different about them was they were different breeds.

Enjoyable and informative

Cesar covers all the needed new puppy information in a more interesting format than some of the other puppy care books. He adopted four puppies with a variety of needs and backgrounds. As he tells about the individual dogs you learn the right way through each phase of puppy care. I found it easy and entertaining listening, rather than lists and dry information.

A MUST HAVE!!!

Everything you need to know about puppies and how to raise them properly from Cesar´s point of view is in this book. I loved it, definetly a MUST HAVE if you are planning to buy a dog or already have some trouble with your new puppy.

Great listen!!

Such a great amount of information, really helps thinking like a Momma dog, vs the emotions ee have and impart on our animals, that they don't really feel. Our 4.5 month old Daisy, golden retriever is responding so well to the techniques I've used that I've learned in this book. She c is, so much smarter than I ever gave her credit for as a puppy.

OK

I believe Cesar Milan is a great dog trainer. Even though his show is heavily edited to show 'quick' results, his methods are solid. I was hoping for more from this book but was somewhat disappointed. Not all of us have a well-trained dog in our pack to help with raising a new pup/dog.

Not narrated by him and I would have preferred that.

Perfect for new owners

This is a perfect for those who are new to dog ownership, AND those wo haven't been for a while. Great tips !!!

Definitely not Cesar Millan

This is a good book capturing stories and techniques by Cesar Millan HOWEVER it is NOT narrated by him as advertised. The narrator is good but sounds like Casey Kasem. Also the "with Melissa Jo Peltier", his tv producer, as a co-author is an understatement. This book is more of a Dog-Whisperer-branded product. Despite the misleading cover the content is good and useful for dog owners.

Same basic stuff as his other books

He talks about how the three acceptable places to get a puppy are from a breeder, a shelter or on Petfinder. He then goes on to talk extensively about puppies that he got from perfect breeders who spend all their time and energy on their puppies. Puppies that you get from a shelter, you often don’t know what their history is and therefore don’t know that they’ve had the perfect upbringing. He doesn’t address this in this book.

In addition he talks about selecting a puppy based upon his personality.In his book he only selected calm submissive dogs to start. Often at a shelter it’s really impossible to tell what the dog is going to be like because of the environment there currently in. In summary it was a book about perfect dogs, raised in perfect environment by perfect breeders which is not really a realistic expectation for anybody who wants it to adopt a stray dog or a dog from a shelter.