The Dog Rules Book

So begins a beautiful friendship between man and dog, in this case between writer/syndicated humor columnist William J. Thomas and his Border Collie/Australian Shepherd Jake. With great wit and obvious devotion Thomas chronicles his rocky relationship with the "slightly food aggressive" and highly independent-minded Jake. Once a cat person and the author of the bestseller Life in the Litter Box, Thomas explains: "Training a cat was easy. You gave the cat an order, the cat gave you the finger, end of training session. But you give a dog an order and he wags his tail and wiggles his bum and you say to yourself - I got a shot here!" The Dog Rules go something like this: The dog never goes in the house; that's why we paid $250 for the doghouse. Unless it's his birthday, really cold outside, really hot outside, really dark outside. Okay, the dog can live in the house and we'll sell the doghouse to a rookie dog owner who doesn't know the rules. But the dog never goes on the furniture. All right, maybe the old furniture. Okay, the dog can go on the new furniture until it looks like the old furniture, then we'll sell all the bloody furniture with the doghouse in a two-for-one deal. For every dog owner who's ever wondered who's got whom on the leash, The Dog Rules provides many hysterically funny stories that all dog owners will immediately (and unfortunately) recognize.