I’m so excited to have been personally asked by the Author, Mark Butterworth, to review his new book! I do apologize to Mark for being so long in holding up my end of the bargain and my delay has absolutely nothing to do with the book – just a busy life! So, here is what I think of “A Man with Three Great German Shepherds and 1,000 Troy Ounces of Gold.“
What I Liked
I found “A Man With Three Great German Shepherds and 1,000 Troy Ounces of Gold” an interesting read. There were several life lessons learned by the Author, Mark Butterworth that I could identify with, which I found comforting. Seemingly an easy going guy, Mark seems comfortable with his life which is lucky for him because not all of us are.
I’m the type of book reader who does not appreciate a whole lot of unnecessary gibberish about things like the scenery when someone tells a story. A book must “grab” me in the first few pages or I don’t finish it. Mark told his story directly and to the point which was appreciated. For me this was not an “I can’t put this book down” reading experience, but it grabbed me enough to read from start to finish.
The bravery and protection instincts of the German Shepherd breed are outstanding and part of Mark’s story shows this off quite accurately. I visualized this moment in my mind as I was reading and with a tear in my eye actually whispered to myself “That’s a German Shepherd for you!”
I’ve learned just over the past 2-3 years that we humans have long had things backwards when it comes to who protects who. It’s us who are supposed to protect our dogs – not the dog protecting us. The problem is, try telling this to a protective breed dog!
What I Would Have Liked to See
I would have really loved it had a real photo of these dogs been used for the cover design! I can never see enough German Shepherds :) The author sitting with the dogs would have made for an exceptional cover in my opinion.
What I Didn’t Like
To be very honest, I was disturbed by one of the training methods used on the dogs. We believe in positive reinforcement training and do not believe in e-collars except for possibly safety reasons in a *very* rare and extreme circumstance and used only briefly. Even that’s “iffy” because e-collars have been known to cause aggression so use of it could backfire making it even more dangerous for the handler. e-Collars will definitely give a dog a negative reaction as will any other method that inflicts pain.
This is admittedly nit-picky and doesn’t have much (if any) bearing on the overall story, but when you love dogs as I do it’s something that I don’t like to see or hear about. Even though it’s barely mentioned in the book, I feel it will help promote the use of these collars and was a checkmark in the negative column for me.