Rating: 
Summary: Great fun--even for those who already have the perfect dog!
Review: Coren provides a great deal of information about the human/canine relationship. The idea of matching a human personality with canine chracteristics is quite fascinating. Every potential dog owner ought to consider his advice. As a dog person, it's also interesting to hear what Coren has to say about "cat" people.Great fun to read--especially finding out which celeb owns which breed!
Rating: 
Summary: It works!
Review: I admit, I went into this book thinking it couldn't possibly work - that I would know just by reading dog descriptions what dog I wanted. But I have been there - I have gotten a dog and it just didn't work - so I tried this. I read the book, I took the test. I examined the types of dogs that he recommended - I did further research and then I bought one of those types. WOW was he right on - this has been the best fit yet! I am an absolute fan of this book and recommend it to anybody who tells me they are thinking of getting a dog. Most people don't really know much about the different breeds - they know what looks good to them - and what looks good is NOT what fits into our lives. Try it - you'll be surprised by what he comes up with - and I bet it will be a match for life!!
Rating:
Summary: It works!
Review: I admit, I went into this book thinking it couldn't possibly work - that I would know just by reading dog descriptions what dog I wanted. But I have been there - I have gotten a dog and it just didn't work - so I tried this. I read the book, I took the test. I examined the types of dogs that he recommended - I did further research and then I bought one of those types. WOW was he right on - this has been the best fit yet! I am an absolute fan of this book and recommend it to anybody who tells me they are thinking of getting a dog. Most people don't really know much about the different breeds - they know what looks good to them - and what looks good is NOT what fits into our lives. Try it - you'll be surprised by what he comes up with - and I bet it will be a match for life!!
Rating: 
Summary: Extremely sloppy, but entertaining
Review: I bought this book while browsing through the bookstore, because it seemed to have some interesting anecdotes about celebrities and their dogs. I already am a dog owner, so I didn't need the book to help me find a dog. Coren's main premise is that he can match owner personalities with dog personalities. This might be doable, but Coren does this in a very sloppy manner. He takes a bunch of historical figures and celebrities, and presumes to figure out their personalities. For example, he rates Josephine, the wife of Napoleon as medium for extroversion and dominance. Hmmm. Given that she lived two hundred years ago, how accurate can he really be? There's a lot of stuff like this in the book - Coren figuring out personalities based on secondary information. The second problem with the book is that the groupings of the dogs is very broad, making this exercise almost pointless. How useful is a grouping when Shih Tzu's are grouped with terriers? The books that I think are much better are: Your Purebred Puppy by Michele Welton and Understanding Dog Mind by Bonnie Bergin.
Rating:
Summary: Good for well-bred dogs, but doesn't address puppy mill dogs
Review: I don't know how many people I know who have bought a puppy because they like the look of the breed or because they see one on TV, only to find out that they and the dog don't get along. This book can help the potential dog buyer avoid the heartbreak of choosing the wrong dog. Coren groups breeds by personality and matches them to corresponding human personalities. If you're more extroverted or controlling or trustworthy or whatever, you can find the breed to suit you best. Coren's typing is also useful for the potential owner looking for a mixed breed dog. "Mixed breed" isn't a breed of its own; every mixed breed dog is descended from purebreds, and the genetic components of those dogs' temperaments are passed on to the mix. (Genes don't disappear just because they're in a mixed breed dog.) With this book the potential owner has a better idea of what temperament a little mixed breed puppy will have, and can match the dog to their own personality with greater confidence than otherwise. This is all very well and fine if the dog you're planning to choose is well-bred. Unfortunately, most dogs out there aren't. Pet store puppies, puppy mill dogs, and puppies bred by people who want the kids to see 'the miracle of life' don't have consistent temperaments. Puppies from these sources have a far higher chance of having both physical and mental problems. In fact, most of the modern prejudices against purebreds come from people who have bought badly tempered dogs from backyard breeders or puppy mill outlets. Coren doesn't address this vital issue. This is far more than an unfortunate oversight; it's forgetting a major piece of the puzzle.
Rating: 
Summary: Better off looking elsewhere for help in picking a dog.
Review: I found reading this book to be a waste of time. There's a lot of fluff (pages and pages of celebrities and their dogs) and very little, if any, useful info. I can't believe this "expert" recommends that the least dominant people get the most dominant/protective dogs. This is a recipe for disaster. A much better, practical guide to choosing a dog breed is "Choosing a Dog: Your Guide to Picking the Perfect Breed" by Baer and Duno.
Rating:
Summary: Glad I read the book before these reviews
Review: I have always lived with German Shepherds and a mother who is such a German Shepherd person that she never needed a book to know this. I have always loved our dogs, but I have also found that they kind of "hurt my feelings" sometimes. Now I have the perfect dog for me -- one I never would have thought of without this book -- a so-called "stubborn" terrier who always comes when I call and has never "hurt my feelings." I was kind of hesitant because my score was not way above the other categories, but I'm not a scientist so I tried it and it really worked for me. I don't remember the anecdotes about the celebrites. I was also hesitant because I wanted a lap dog and thought about a Cavalier King Charles Spaniel. Well, the terrier sits on my lap, even thought that's most definitely not a "breed characteristic." All I know is the book worked for me, and the people who rated it poorly seem not to have actually bought a dog that turned out not to fit. In other words, they didn't really try it.
Rating:
Summary: Indispensable for matching people to dogs, by temperament.
Review: I have never had a dog. Now that I'm 39, with two boys (4 & 7), I'm researching breeds. This book is proving to be indispensable in developing an understanding of myself and the type of dog people like me get along with best. I'm looking at the breeds in the "Friendly" group. We may be selecting a Labrador Retriever. This book is based on exhaustive research. It contains tables showing the results. It gets complicated, but the author keeps it understandable. Chock full of stories of famous people of all temperaments. Their favorite dogs were in temperament groups matching their owners, according to his research. I found people I identified with, and discovered what their favorite dogs were. This is the book I needed. I highly recommend it.
Rating:
Summary: Nice stuff
Review: I must say that I liked the book. The quiz was fun too. It really helps you choose your four-foot friend. Although I think so many examples of people and their own dogs, and their own way of life isn't so necessary. They could be shorter and fewer. At a point they become boring and you just skip those paragraphs.
Rating:
Summary: Nice anecdotes, but hardly unbiased science
Review: I really did enjoy the little anecdotes in this book -- the ones about James Stewart and his dogs were especially sweet. It's worth browsing for some of those little gems, although frankly I don't think there's much here that hasn't been reported elsewhere. I can't answer for the structure of the "find your breed" quizzes, although I thought it weird that different breeds were recommended for men and women of the same personality "type." ...[I]t seems odd that no breed falls into two categories -- surely some are *both* "friendly" and "clever"? Where Coren drops the ball and then trips over it is when he discusses people who dislike dogs, and people who like cats. ...I think it's worth taking a closer look at exactly what he does in these two chapters. Apparently, people who dislike dogs have no other redeeming features. It's interesting to see Harry Truman discussed solely in light of his failure to enjoy the company of dogs. Apparently, Napoleon grew up a dictator because he lacked the love of a good dog. This is superficially convincing, until you remember that Adolf Hitler was apparently capable of being fond of at least ONE dog in his misbegotten life. What Coren is doing here is playing to the prejudices of animal lovers, who sometimes believe we're superior to people who don't like animals. Specifically, though, it's to any inherent feelings of superiority experienced by dog lovers. The chapter about cats and cat people is even worse -- and again, it's worse for an interesting reason. In his far superior book, *The Intelligence of Dogs,* Coren is at great pains to point out that "obedience intelligence" is only one kind of intelligence, that dogs bred for different purposes think in different ways, and just because a terrier is not as biddable as a goldenn retriever, it does not make the terrier "dumb." Then he uses the word "dumb" to characterize cats -- repeatedly. It never occurs to Coren that an animal which is not a dog might legitimately behave in a way different from dogs. And it's obvious he doesn't know much about cats, because he mouths all the stereotypes (aloof, unfriendly, doesn't socialize with its humans) in a manner to make anyone who knows a well-socialized cat howl with laughter. ("You rarely see cats during the day." Sure, you rarely see mine, unless you happen to be near me and looking down -- they're almost always underfoot!) Coren then quotes from a "study" he did of cat and dog owners. He doesn't reproduce his survey instrument, so there is no way of knowing whether it's reliable, but he uses it to characterize cat owners as cold, aloof, unloving people -- far inferior to the nice warm dog people! Then, just in case we haven't already lost all faith in his scientific impartiality, he proceeds to relate an anecdote from his past, in which a single, neurotic woman with obvious attachment issues is made to represent all cat people. (And yes, he says she is the quintessential cat person.) Now, if half of what he says about this poor woman is true, she was a mess -- but I know dog owners who treat their unfortunate pets in the very same ways. Turn them into picky eaters and then feed them an unbalanced diet of people food? Some dog owners do it all the time. Fail to socialize their pets and then make excuses when Fluffy bites someone? Again, plenty of dog owners do this. Let your pet run loose and then shrug when it comes to a tragic end, because "that's the natural way"? I've known several dog owners who did that, with a series of dogs. Coren's attempt to characterize these flaws as "typical" of cat people make it clear that he is unable to overcome his own dislike of cats, and either lacks the insight to realize it, or hopes to foist his agenda off on his readers. Me, I like dogs. I like cats. And I enjoyed his earlier book. But after he's exposed his own unacknowledged prejudices to this extent, how am I supposed to believe his discussions of different breeds of dogs carry any less bias? If the only criteria he has for dismissing cats as pets is his own opinion (and he does, in fact, offer his unsupported opinion that owning a cat is just slightly better than coming home to an empty house), what if he doesn't care for a particular breed of dog? Will that influence the groupings he creates? This is pop psychology of the most shallow, facile sort. Read this book for the anecdotess about Jimmy Stewart, but for heaven's sake don't hope for any insights into animals or people!
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