Dogs on the Couch describes 5 different positive and humane alternative heeling collars, including the Halti, to use instead of the choke chain. Unless the dog is aggressive, they are used temporarily and are weaned off as the dog learns to heel. No choking or hanging.

The book also makes it clear that THERE IS NO ONE BREED OF DOG THAT IS INHERENTLY AGGRESSIVE, the authors do NOT support breed-specific legislation, and they put the onus of responsibility for dog bites on the OWNER.

Interested readers can look up annual dog bite statistics by consulting such resources as:"Dog Bite Related Fatalities--U.S., 1995," in the Morbidity & Mortality Weekly Reports, V. 46, Issue 21, U.S. Centers for Disease Control, May 30, 1997; "Dog Bites Recognized as Public Health Problem," Journal of the American Medical Association, V. 277, Jan 22-29, 1997, p. 278; and in "Dog Bite-Related Fatalities from 1979-1988," in the Journal of the American Medical Association, V. 262, 1989, p. 1489, by J.J. Sacks, et.al.

Taken in total, the book is balanced, positive and describes behavior therapy solutions to both simple and complicated dog behavior problems.

"Larry Lachman's Dogs on the Couch, written with Frank Mickadeit, is another great addition to a pet enthusiast's library, especially for those contemplating adopting their first puppy or dog. From sibling rivalries to phobias to just not minding their owners, the authors cover common canine behavior problems. Lachman, for many years a counselor working with abused children and others in need, turns many of the same techniques he has used with people to training dogs. He stresses the need to involve all family members when you are working to prevent or change a dog behavior problem, and he eschews physical punishment, such as the jerk-and-release technique. Dogs on the Couch offers a comprehensive look at what to do and not to do to create a happy, well-adjusted pet." --"Animals" Magazine, July/August 1999

There are many dog training books on the shelves today. But, that is what they are, Dog training books. Lachman's book is different. It is about learning to live with your dog as part of your family. The techniques he uses to train the dogs are non violent, and easy to follow. He also includes advice for common problems like seperation anxiety and aggression. I have been using the techniques for aggressive dogs for 5 days, and am already seeing a difference in my malamute. In addition there are 2 chapters I think really stand out for me, and those were choosing the right breed of dog for you, and dealing with pet loss. I want a good dog, but I want a dog, not a robot. With Lachman's book you can have just that! With the familiar tone of the book, it easy to read and follow, and enjoy. If youhave a dog, or want a dog, Get this book. You will not be disappointed.

This is a new and welcome addition to the Netter family of publications. IMHO, the real utility of Netter publications lies in the rendition of the plates. As an embryological atlas, this volume leaves somethings to be desired. Aside from this caveat, the images are a wonderful addition to the littany of "standard" figures that are ususally the same figure repeated with minor variations.

The use of color is of particular value in understanding the development of structures where boundaries between transient elements is indistinct. These make a nice adjunct to the more conventional texts.

This is a teaching book that will be of greatest use to those who have already grasped the basic elements of human embryology. They illustrate conceptually complex topics and are thus of real utility. I don't see this as a primary text, since it contains a great deal of anatomical, pathological and teratological images as well.

It's about time. There has never been a more lucid account of the normal and abnormal processes of human development. Netter's illustrations combined with Cochard's succinct text and learning aids go far beyond any other books published to help further the understanding of embryology.

It sure seemed to me as if McMurtry and Simon & Schuster were merely completing some sort of contractual obligation to each other and emotional obligation to fans of the Lonesome Dove series with the publication of Comanche Moon.

Yeah, I enjoyed the book for 400-500 pages, before it degenerated into a progressively typo-ridden, rambling series of brief, occasionally poignant but mainly disconnected and even trite series of vignettes attempting to sum up the lives of the various characters.

Others have described the incredibly sloppy proofreading job on this book, involving typographical errors and repeated portions of dialogue. What a mess! What lack of respect for the reading public! And the editors failed to correct the author's numerous mental lapses, among them:

* Ranger Lee Hitch is shaggy-haired and Stove Jones is bald, but several pages later, when they line up for haircuts in the town of Lonesome Dove, Lee Hitch is bald and Stove Jones is shaggy-haired.

* Inez Scull complains that she dropped her buggy whip, then just a few paragraphs later, she begins to beat Gus with her buggy whip.

* Call grows bored with the rangers' conversation and walks away, then somehow contributes a comment to the same conversation.

Have I missed anything?

I greatly enjoyed the Lonesome Dove series, but would rank this book fourth in quality.

How can one man write four books about the same characters with no concern for continuity? I don't know, but I am equally clueless as to how he can dispense with continuity, alter events, change characters' histories and personalities and still make me love the work. As he did in Streets of Laraedo and Dead Man's Walk, McMurty changes certain elements of his well established characters' pasts. The changes are most glaring in this book, the immeadiate precursor to his magnificent Lonesome Dove. However, as poorly as his four Gus and Call books fit together, they stand alone very well. In Comanche Moon, McMurtry leads us from Gus and Call in their late twenties to their mid fourties. It appears to end roughly 5 or so years prior to Lonesome Dove. Many will be surprised and delighted to find that the relationship between Call and Maggie, mother of Call's son Newt, is well defined and much more significant than was alluded to in Dove. Another detail that completely reverses itself from Dove is that of the life of Jake Spoon. Far from a romantic rival with Gus for the heart of Clara Allen, Jake is a dippy young moron, afraid of any action, desperate to end his days as a Ranger alive. But much of the action here centers on a new character, Capt. Skull, the rangering Ranger captain who gives Gus and Call their first command by abandoning them and the Ranger troop in order to learn how to track by walking off with Famous Shoes. Skull is a classic McMurtry eccentric, and the only person whom really provides any suspense, as only the future of his life is unknown to us. Skull is witty and full of vim and vinegar. His battles, both mental and physical, are among the most engaging portions of the story. And the most revolting.

Certainly, the way McMurty takes liberties with characters that many love is often maddening, but when seperated from the other books, Comanche Moon stands on its own well. It is another gripping and unflinching look at an unromanticized American West, and it continues the! excellent development of the Indian characters McMurtry began in Dead Man's Walk. Buffalo Hump, Kicking Wolf and Blue Duck are fleshed out in a manner that is not often seen with Indians in most Western novels. Far from ciphers, they are realistic characters that cause you to see that Ranger-Indian fights are not as simple as Good vs. Evil. They are, rather, Man vs. Man, and Culture vs. Culture, and they are all the more heartbreaking because of it.

I don't know if McMurtry is getting lazy. I don't know if he simply doesn't give a damn about whether or not readers care. In the end, it really doesn't matter as he still can deliver page turners with the best of them. And by the the time you finish Comanche Moon, you realize that the changes in Gus and Call's history, changes that can make rereading Lonesome Dove jarring, are for the best. This is how he should have set up their pasts in Dove. It a richer, more poignant past for Gus and Call than what was alluded to in that Pulitzer Prize winning novel.

Finally, the audio presentation is top notch. Of course, how could it not be with the peerless Frank Muller as narrator?

This is a middle book in the Lonesome Dove series; it's the one that comes before Lonesome Dove proper. Pleasantly, McMurtry doesn't subject any of his main characters to horrible deaths this time around. On the other hand, if you've read the other books you know what's coming, so the comforting effect of that is relative.

Native Americans get a slightly better portrayal here than in some of the other volumes. There are still psycho killers, including one really frightening bandit, but there are also brave and genuinely human characters. Overall it's a gritty version of the period just before the Civil War, with gripping scenes of torture and survival. As usual, there are strong female characters, but they generally come to bad ends, just as the men do.

I'd recommend this for readers of the series. I'm not sure how well it stands alone.

Thirty-two pages? Unless you're desperate for this information--and I don't see why anyone would be; there's lots of FLW books--be aware that you're only getting about a dozen color pics and a brief accompanying story. Usonian houses are thoroughly covered in John Sergeant's book, in a more scholarly way. Nice presentation though: the cover is perforated like the plywood panels on the house.

This impressively illustrated small volume tells the inspiring story of an important Frank Lloyd Wright home. The Gordon House, 1957, was designed for an Oregon farmer and his wife. This very special house is one of only two houses to evolved from Wright's famous model house design "A Private Little Club", published in Life magazine, Sep. 1938. When new owners planned to destroy the house to make way for a much larger, but very common place design, national media attention, public opinion, and a sizeable tax deduction, pursuaded the new owners to allow the Chicago based Frank Lloyd Wright Building Conservancy to move the building to a new site. However, they allowed the Conserevancy only 105 days to remove the building from their property. The Oregon Garden, a relatively new botanical garden 25 miles south east of the original site, was selected to receive the building. Their team, through heroic effort and impressive community participation, moved and reconstructed the building in record time. It has now opened as the only Frank Lloyd Wright house museum in the northwest and the only "Usonian" design west of the Mississippy open to the public.

Larry Kramer won an Oscar for his screenplay in WOMEN IN LOVE, and has received quite a bit of attention for his political dramas. Sadly, they're not very good. WOMEN IN LOVE still reads as campy and overbaked, and the dramas seem shrill and uninteresting. In an essay on his much-lambasted satire JUST SAY NO, Kramer vigorously champions what he sees as the play's genius (he favorably compares himself to Aristophanes!), and though he rightly scores points against the prissier critics who deplored the play's lack of good taste he fails to consider that the play was (and remains) obvious and unfunny.

Kramer is an inspired political writer, and though you may disagree with him his essays are always worth reading if you care about gay identity. But he is a weak and obvious playwright and screenwriter.

"Women In Love" ranks among the finest films from an unrivaled era in screen history. "Faggots" was and remains a seminal American novel, and "The Normal Heart" one of the best and most produced American plays of the twentieth century. This book charts for lovers of great writing exactly how Kramer forged himself into a literary triple threat. It's easy to be distracted by his formidable civic achievements and confrontational public persona, but as an artist and living writer of fiction he ranks among the grand masters. This book is a treasure.