How to Raise a Jewish Dog by the Rabbis of the Boca Raton Theological Seminary as to Ellis Weiner & Barbara Davilman

I really bought this book thinking it was a humor book. It seemed like one because of the pictures of people putting up “Dog not lost YET” poster and crying “how could you do this to me” to a dog who had gone through the trash looking for food, seems so funny to me. It turns out that this book is serious. It actually is a book on how to train your dog.

Still interested, I read the book over a weekend.

You don’t have to be Jewish to use and understand this book. You only have to love your dog. For me, Dogs have always been a part of life. Everyone in my family had one: big dogs, little dogs and ones that were in-between. Some were smart and some weren’t. Some sweet, some mean. This book helped me feel better about my family’s incredibly personal relationships with our K9 friends.

The book promotes having a symbiotic relationship with you dog. Treat your dog like a high being and you are on your way. Know your dog’s moods and you’re in better shape. Expect to argue with your dog and now you are in the mindset to effectively train your dog to be a Jewish dog.

One example is the fight for the chair. This reminds me of a famous series of battles between my dog (Beagle) and my grandmother. My grandmother always lost these battles and said to my dog “If you want that it so bad, you can have it!” In How to Raise a Jewish Dog the exact same scenario is played out, with the same outcome and the same sentiment expressed. Brilliant!

The book, explains that instead of punishing your dog, they are against violence, guilt your dog, which is much more effective. They advocate praising your dog as much as possible, especially in public and in front of other people; so that the dog feels like the whole world loves him.

The book starts out by asking the four questions. Think of the four questions from the Passover Seder. It points out strategies for dealing with other dogs (stay away from the Beagle’s evil ways {food, food, food}) and other people who your dog doesn’t like. It covers raising the dog from infant to old age, travels and manners.

Why the Rabbis of the Boca Raton Theological Seminary? Well, it turns out that these guys were trying to form their own liberal Judaism in Boca Raton Florida. They met in a motel there, which they eventually bought. Students were worried that they were leaving their dogs at home alone. So, the Seminary let a couple students bring their dogs to class., then everyone brought their dogs, and there was a whole community of dogs at the Seminary/Motel. They found the dogs to be a welcomed addition to the environment. Everyone was much happier with the dogs being there, but they were presented with a series of behaviorial problems. Together they figured out ways to solve these behavior problems and produced some pretty well adjusted dogs. People outside the Seminary started to notice these well behaved dogs and offered to pay them to train their dogs. The rest, as they say, was history.

Remember, at the start of this, I thought this was a humor book. Well it is a very funny book, because it is very realistic with our relationship with our four legged friends. They seem to get it. I laughed throughout it. It was a very enjoyable read, and it brought back a lot of warm feelings and memories of Beagle, Shoemaker, Dude, Jerry Jacob, Zach, Spike, Pepsi, Pepper, Sundance and stories of Peanuts, the funny legged dog.