Are you getting a puppy? Is it your first puppy? Do you want to be a responsible puppy parent? If you answered “yes” to any of these questions, good for you! We happened to answer “yes” to all three! Except the first question should have been, “Did you already get a puppy?” Some of these chapters would have been more helpful had we read them before getting him, but better late than never, amirite?!
Puppy Brain: How Our Dogs Learn, Think, and Love
Author: Kerry Nichols
Pages: 400
Format: Hardcover
Published: April 30, 2024
Publisher: Celadon Books
View on Goodreads
Date Completed: July 4, 2024
My rating: 
Thoughts
My wife, we’ll call her Bethy, and I have always been “cat people” since we’ve known each other. We both have had dogs when we were growing up. But it got to a point where we only ever had cats. Bethy is a psychologist and has her own clinic. At some point she decided it would be great to have a therapy dog in the office. But she didn’t want a big dog – mainly because the dog would live with us and we wanted something more “cat sized.” After doing some research, she concluded that a mini goldendoodle would be perfect for us and as a therapy dog. Now we just needed the dog and a lot of education on being parents of a dog.
Puppy Brain is a book that was coming up in ads on my Facebook and Instagram feeds. I’m quite susceptible to that kind of marketing. But I’ve also been more successful than not with purchases based on those ads. This book is no different. I know there’s tons of books out there and probably ones that others would consider better. But this was the one we got (remember, I’m an easy sell on those ads).
Kerry Nichols is a breeder of golden retrievers. You know this because she talks about it all throughout the book. But I’m glad she had one breed to use as a point of reference (and one that she is arguably and expert on) rather than trying to be “fair” to all breeds. She even notes this saying that the information in this book relates to all breeds – that she just talks golden retrieve because that’s what she knows.
The book is structured in four parts:
- Human beginnings – The author talks about her history as a breeder and about the “adopt or shop” mentality. These two chapters really helped solidify Nichols’s expertise in the field and give you a good idea of her as a person before getting into the nitty-gritty details in the rest of the book.
- Developmental milestones – This section has chapters on conception and pregnancy, birth, and one for each of the puppy’s first eight weeks on this world. This was a fascinating look at the development of a puppy before it goes to its forever home. Something that most of us never get to experience.
- Puppy preparations – These are the chapters that a person should read before getting a puppy. We did not, but that’s okay because luckily we had done some research of our own before our Fozzie came home to us. There were just a few updates we needed to make to set us on the course to success. These chapters even get into how to select a breeder, human training, and some quick trainings to get your puppy started off right in its new home.
- Hardwiring your puppy for happiness – These chapters really dive into more specifics on training and conditioning. From getting the puppy used to the bath, to body handling and touch, and what to expect during adolescence. The Landshark chapter was a good one for anyone, like us, who has a puppy that loves to put your extremities in its mouth. And the chapter on how to think about spaying and neutering was super interesting.
Overall, this book has so much to get you going with your puppy. It doesn’t replace the training classes or anything. But for us it has been incredibly helpful as we wait for our first in-person training date.
There were only a few things that I didn’t like. The first was that there were parts of the book that really felt like the author was trying to sell the reader on getting your next golden retriever from her. Now, obviously she’s running a business, so why not use this book as a marketing opportunity, right? But remember how easy of a sale I am? I’m pretty sure that if we’re ever in the market for a golden retriever, we’ll start with Nicholberry Goldens.
There were some aspects of the book that were either repetitive or contradictory. I can handle repetition sometimes – it’s a good way to really get knowledge driven in. Plus, that’s what we’re doing with our dogs when we’re training them! But one contradiction in particular really stands out to me. In one part about biting or resource guarding or something, she was talking about how there might be some things we don’t want the dog to chew up. She used paper towels as an example. Good, because Fozzie loves to shred things like paper towels we discovered. But in another part, maybe in adolescence and about shredding behaviors, she talks about finding something that you’re okay with a dog shredding. Again, she used paper towels as an example, but this time as one that was maybe okay. I’m over here scratching my head wondering if paper towels are okay or not. I think it really comes down to what you the human are willing to clean up. But that wasn’t really made clear. We decided against paper towels and napkins, but we discovered that paper bags are hit with Fozzie!
Lastly, while just as well written as the rest of the book, the final two chapters were a bit unnecessary. We were greatly interested in the Therapy Dogs chapter. It was nice that she specified the difference between service dogs, emotional support dogs, and therapy dogs. But she basically said that the training is the same until the dog needs to take its therapy dog certification exam. And then tells you how to Google how to find training and exams in your area. Didn’t really need 10 pages for that.
The last chapter, The Inevitable Goodbye, was included because she’s asked about end of life stuff a lot. I get it. You can lose a dog at any age. But in a book called Puppy Brain, I just don’t think it was completely necessary. I will say though, having said goodbye to cats and dogs over the years, it was a really sweet chapter. I just think it was weird that we skipped over a (hopefully) long life and went right to the end.
Overall, I gave this book 4 out of 5 stars. I would highly recommend it to anyone considering getting a puppy. Especially if they want to be really great parents to the new little one.
