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Book Perfect For Neurotic Dog Owners

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By Ann Marie Quill

Looking for a gift for that neurotic dog owner on your list? Or for the owner of an equally neurotic dog?

The recently released 176-page paperback How to Raise a Jewish Dog is a humorous training guide, complete with photos and charts, on how to properly rear a dog so it does not become an obedient, boring robotic canine.

Written by Ellis Weiner and Barbara Davilman, authors of Yiddish with Dick and Jane, the book features everything from guilt, shame, passive aggressive, sarcasm and martyrdom training techniques, which usually result in simply giving up, to basic commands like "What, would it kill you to sit down for one lousy second?" and age-appropriate commands for older dogs, such as "don't start."

The authors promise if "after your dog has an accident on the good carpet, do you make sure that he understands how this is a personal affront to you, the only one who really loves him," you may be raising a Jewish dog. . . . And the best part? You don't have to be Jewish to benefit from the program. Just neurotic. Or crazy about your dog."

Also included is a hilarious 14-page questionnaire for potential pet-sitters that delves deeply into their personal lives, a chapter on the importance of a Jewish dog's diet, and warnings about the outside world, which is full of impending natural disasters and lunatics, and therefore why it's important to create pre-printed "missing pet" posters.

So forget serious training manuals and advice from dog psychologists and whisperers; instead, let this easy-to-digest book guide you or at least make you feel better in knowing you are not the only one who enjoys a complex relationship with your canine companion.

How to Raise a Jewish Dog ($12.99; Little, Brown and Company, 2007) is available at Amazon.com.

Ñ Ann Marie Quill

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