Books about Herding from Amazon.com

The Hobby Farm series presents Goats

Jump from the bandwagon to the farm with one of the hottest-growing food sources in the country Goats is an in-depth guide to small-scale goat keeping—for pleasure and profit! The author delivers essential information on choosing, breeding, and tending goats while also herding together some fascinating and fun facts about them. Comprehensive discussions, full-color photos, and easy-to-use charts will help to ensure the success of your goat-keeping ventures.

· From cashmere to milk and meat! · Select the right breed for your farm · Learn common goat herd behavior · Keep goats healthy with a nutritious diet · Spot symptoms of common goat disease · Breed, deliver, and care for does and bucks · Market and sell fresh goat milk · Explore goat resources and Web sites Plus many other helpful tips!

About the Hobby Farms™ series Whether you're a weekend gardener or dedicated small farmer, you'll gather a bushel of essential information from the Hobby Farms series. Hobby Farm and its companion editions will help both experienced and novice hobby farmers realize their own dreams of life on the farm—for pleasure or profit.

Look for other essential Hobby Farms titles, such as Hobby Farm™ Cattle, Chickens, Sheep, and many more to come!.
Price: $8.44 [Notify me when price goes down.]

In his previous books, New York Times bestselling author Jon Katz introduced us to the delightful menagerie at Bedlam Farm, including Izzy, the unforgettable border collie rescue. Now, in Izzy & Lenore, Katz delves deeper into his connection with the beautiful, once-abandoned dog, learning yet again about the unexpected places animals can take us. Affectionate and intuitive, Izzy is unlike any dog Katz has encountered, and the two undertake a journey Katz could not have imagined without the arrival of a new companion: a spirited, bright-eyed black Labrador puppy named Lenore.

As trained hospice volunteers visiting homes and nursing facilities in upstate New York, Katz and Izzy bring comfort and canine companionship to people who most need it. An eighty-year-old Alzheimer’s patient smiles for the first time in months when she feels Izzy’s soft fur. A retired logger joyfully remembers his own beloved dog when he sees Izzy. As Izzy bonds with patients and Katz focuses on their families, the author begins to come to terms with his own life, discovering dark realities he has never confronted. Meanwhile, Lenore–quickly dubbed the Hound of Love–arrives at Bedlam. Her genial personality and boundless capacity for affection steer Katz out of the shadows, rekindle his love of working with dogs, and restore his connection to the farm and the animals and people around him.

Humorous and deeply moving, Izzy & Lenore is a story of a man confronting his past, embracing the blessings of his current life, and rediscovering the meaning of friendship, family, and faith. Katz shares an uplifting tale of love, compassion, and the rich and complex relationships between dogs and their humans..
Price: $16.32 [Notify me when price goes down.]

An outstanding analysis of why and how protection, Obedience, and Tracking all play an integral part in Schutzhund training, with emphasis on selecting and raising a dog to suit the owner's needs..
Price: $13.98 [Notify me when price goes down.]

“People who love dogs often talk about a ‘lifetime’ dog. I’d heard the phrase a dozen times before I came to recognize its significance Lifetime dogs are dogs we love in especially powerful, sometimes inexplicable ways.”–Jon Katz

In this gripping and deeply touching book, bestselling author Jon Katz tells the story of his lifetime dog, Orson: a beautiful border collie–intense, smart, crazy, and unforgettable.

From the moment Katz and Orson meet, when the dog springs from his traveling crate at Newark airport and panics the baggage claim area, their relationship is deep, stormy, and loving. At two years old, Katz’s new companion is a great herder of school buses, a scholar of refrigerators, but a dud at herding sheep. Everything Katz attempts– obedience training, herding instruction, a new name, acupuncture, herb and alternative therapies–helps a little but not enough, and not for long. “Like all border collies and many dogs,” Katz writes, “he needed work. I didn’t realize for some time I was the work Orson would find.”
While Katz is trying to help his dog, Orson is helping him, shepherding him toward a new life on a two-hundred-year-old hillside farm in upstate New York. There, aided by good neighbors and a tolerant wife, hip-deep in sheep, chickens, donkeys, and more dogs, the man and his canine companion explore meadows, woods, and even stars, wade through snow, bask by a roaring wood stove, and struggle to keep faith with each other. There, with deep love, each embraces his unfolding destiny.

A Good Dog is a book to savor. Just as Orson was the author’s lifetime dog, his story is a lifetime treasure–poignant, timeless, and powerful.


From the Hardcover edition..
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Strong, smart, loyal, and self-assured, the Boxer is great with kids and makes a wonderful family pet. A typical boxer has boundless energy and curiosity and is a natural clown. Although it’s rare to find one with a mean streak, the breed can be inquisitive to a fault, and the Boxer’s extroverted, comic personality can drive your neighbors’ cats and dogs up a tree–literally and figuratively. Luckily, those characteristics are balanced by the Boxer’s intelligence and strong desire to please. Boxers excel at obedience training, hospital therapy volunteer work, and rescue work, and they make excellent watchdogs as well.

Is this frolicsome clown the right dog for you and your family? Boxers For Dummies provides the answer to this and all your questions about getting, caring for and living with this loveable breed. Life-long Boxer owner and long-time Boxer breeder and trainer, Richard Beauchamp gets you up and running with what you need to know to:

• Fin d and communicate with reputable breeders
• Choose the right Boxer for you
• Housebreak and socialize your new puppy
• Educate yourself and your dog
• Handle behavioral problems
• Participate in competitions

In friendly, down-to-earth language, Rick provides insights into the Boxer temperament and loads of sensible, easy-to-follow advice on everything a Boxer owner should know–along with fun facts and Boxer trivia, amusing and informative anecdotes, and tips on how to have a great time with your Boxer. Discover how to:

• Decide on whether a male or female is right for you
• Find and choose your new friend and bring him or her home
• Understand how to communicate with your Boxer
• Train your Boxer
• Find a good trainer and attend classes
• Deal with emotional conflicts
• Feed and exercise your Boxer
• Recognize, prevent and treat common health problems
• Have loyal friend for life

The indispensable guide for you and your Boxer, Boxers For Dummies is the only book you’ll need to help you have the best possible experience with this irrepressibly curious and fun-loving breed of dog..
Price: $4.48 [Notify me when price goes down.]

“Dogs are blameless, devoid of calculation, neither blessed nor cursed with human motives They can’t really be held responsible for what they do. But we can.”
–from The Dogs of Bedlam Farm

When Jon Katz adopted a border collie named Orson, his whole world changed Gone were the two yellow Labs he wrote about in A Dog Year, as was the mountaintop cabin they loved. Katz moved into an old farmhouse on forty-two acres of pasture and woods with a menagerie: a ram named Nesbitt, fifteen ewes, a lonely donkey named Carol, a baby donkey named Fanny, and three border collies.

Training Orson was a demanding project. But a perceptive dog trainer and friend told Katz: “If you want to have a better dog, you will just have to be a better goddamned human.” It was a lesson Katz took to heart. He now sees his dogs as a reflection of his willingness to improve, as well as a critical reminder of his shortcomings. Katz shows us that dogs are often what we make them: They may have their own traits and personalities, but in the end, they are mirrors of our own lives–living, breathing testaments to our strengths and frustrations, our families and our pasts.

The Dogs of Bedlam Farm recounts a harrowing winter Katz spent on a remote, windswept hillside in upstate New York with a few life-saving friends, ugly ghosts from the past, and more livestock than any novice should attempt to manage. Heartwarming, and full of drama, insight, and hard-won wisdom, it is the story of his several dogs forced Katz to confront his sense of humanity, and how he learned the places a dog could lead him and the ways a doge could change him.


From the Hardcover edition..
Price: $4.29 [Notify me when price goes down.]

Herding Dogs: Progressive Training is the only book of its kind to guide the owner toward training the complete herding dog. Whether you are involved in farming or ranching, or simply want to explore your herding dog's heritage, you will find a wealth of information here. For those with competitive goals, Herding Dogs will enhance your knowledge with a philosophy that has the dog's individual breed and personality as the central focus.

Vergil S. Holland teaches the handler to understand the dog's reactions before beginning this progressive training. Whether it is your dog's first exposure to stock or your older dog with a new problem, you, as a handler, will find solutions to each problem and sound advice on each phase of training.

Special chapters on different personalities of the various herding breeds, with training modifications tailored to these differences, make it possible for you and your dog as a team to reach your maximum potential.

Herding commands and terms are thoroughly covered, as are those of basic Obedience for the stock dog. Working various kinds of stock-sheep, cattle and ducks-is covered to meet the needs of every stock dog owner. Detailed diagrams and concept maps throughout the book highlight the individualized training methods for each type of dog and stock.
A Howell Dog Book of Distinction.
Price: $12.30 [Notify me when price goes down.]

Deriving from ancient dogs from the Old World, the Mastiff remains one of the most fascinating living relics in the animal kingdom Today's Mastiff, no longer used as a warrior, large-game hunter and animal baiter, has become an upright member of canine society, as a home companion, estate guardian and show dog. Weighing over 200 pounds, the noble Mastiff is the heaviest pure-bred dog in the world, a true gentle giant who lives to be close to his well-protected family. For the right family, able to offer proper accommodations and training, the Mastiff makes a true "friend for life." Author Christina de Lima-Netto, a successful Mastiff breeder from Spain, has written an informative and insightful book about her best friend. The new owner and the experienced owner alike will welcome the author's experience and candor, whether she's discussing the breed's complex history, breed characteristics and the standard or her own ways of feeding, training and caring for the Mastiff. Illustrated with over 135 color photographs, this book also presents information on housebreaking, everyday care, health care, showing and much more..
Price: $9.66 [Notify me when price goes down.]

Derived from the powerful mastiff dogs of Roman Times, the Cane Corso comes to modern man as an agile protector, a big-game hunter and an all-around working dog. This large and formidable Italian guard dog is currently enjoying a Renaissance in the new century as a recognized pure-bred dog, attracting many new fanciers every year. Not the dog for the inexperienced or the faint of heart, the Cane Corso is a strong-minded and strong-bodied protection dog, naturally suspicious of strangers and devoutly attached to his owners.

This Special Rare-Breed Edition, the only book of its kind about this fascinating Italian Mastiff, offers an insightful history of the breed, an in-depth look at the breed's characteristics and standard as well as puppy selection and rearing, obedience training and housebreaking, and health care and maintenance. Owners will welcome the author's good advice on puppy-proofing the home, socialization and preventing puppy problems. In addition to an authoritative, comprehensive text, this book presents over 135 photographs in full color, which prove to be as informative as they are attractive..
Price: $14.88 [Notify me when price goes down.]