For instance, in one of the sidebars (titled "Old wives tales"), the author states that "the dominant gene prevails" and breeding a dog of one trait to another with the opposite trait (like tall to short for example) will never produce offspring that's in between. He obviously hasn't heard of co-recessive or co-dominant genes or gene mutations. In the same article, he also claims inter-species matings is impossible- I guess he's never heard of or seen a Bengal Cat, Liger or Mule. His statement about breeding dogs to their wilder counterparts like wolves will never better their hunting skills is also false (there have been many instances of dogs mating with wolves and the resulting puppies had traits of both parents, the controvertial American Indian Dog is one example). Perhaps he should have taken the chance to explain how these myths came by instead of proving his lack of knowledge by being a cocky know-it-all.

The rest of the book is nothing but articles concerning dogs and dog breeding in general- the only detailed articles (and there are a lot of them) are the ones bragging about the sucess of the author's breeding stock, the countries his breeding stock has travelled to and his credentials. For example, he talks about how important matching pedigrees is, how he does it all the time, how successful he is at doing it, but never tells us how we should go about it.

There is nothing in this book on choosing a potential owner for the puppies, only a couple of paragraphs saying that people should avoid giving out their dogs to those who only way one because the breed is a latest fad. Perhaps a sample question list would have been useful.

The fact that such a reputed publisher would let a narcissist who doesn't even understand basic genetics write a "How To" book worries me. A novice breeder would have better luck finding out about dog breeding in a general pet care book.

Please do not buy this book. The only time it'll come into use is when you run out of newspapers to toilet train your puppies with.