There are scores of books and videos describing the characteristics of individual breeds, including 135 American Kennel Club video guides and their CD-ROMs demonstrating the standards of quality for each of the recognized breeds. The AKC's Complete Dog Book is a standard reference book, and a beautiful encyclopedic overview you can borrow is Legacy of the Dog: The Ultimate Illustrated Guide to Over 200 Breeds. Big Dogs, Little Dogs, an A&E video, looks at everything canine, traces the origins of the most popular breeds, and shows expert trainers in action.

Can't decide which dog's for you?  Read Why We Love the Dogs We Do: How to Find the Dog That Matches Your Personality by Stanley Coren or Dogsmart: The Ultimate Guide for Finding the Dog You Want and Keeping the Dog You Find by Myrna Milani.

Here are a few of the many guides to getting the relationship off to a good start:
The Art of Raising a Puppy by the Monks of New Skete. (Check out the Monks' three-video series as well.)
The Perfect Puppy by Gwen Bailey.
Puppy Preschool: Raising Your Puppy Right--Right from the Start by John Ross and Barbara McKinney.
Saved! : A Guide to Success with Your Shelter Dog by Myrna L. Papurt.
We're Having a Puppy! : From the Big Decision through the Crucial First Year by Eric Swanson

New titles focusing on canine care include Dogs: The Ultimate Care Guide: Good Health, Loving Care, Maximum Longevity edited by Matthew Hoffman and The Humane Society's Complete Guide by Marion S. Lane.  See, as well, What Your Dog Is Trying to Tell You: A Head-to-tail Guide to Your Dog's Symptoms and Their Solutions by John Simon and The Consumer's Guide to Dog Food: What's in Dog Food, Why It's There and How to Choose the Best Food for Your Dog by Liz Palika.

The number of training manuals in the library collections reaffirms that "Down! Stay!" is clearly easier said than accomplished.  Nonetheless Krista Cantrell insists that you can train any dog in five minutes a day (Catch Your Dog Doing Something Right). Ted Baer shares How to Teach Your Old Dog New Tricks. And Jack and Wendy Volhard promise that every dog can be a Canine Good Citizen. Uncle Matty's Ultimate Guide to Dog Training by Mordecai Siegal and Matthew Margolis is based on the television series Woof!   Their popular book Good Dog, Bad Dog makes it easy, so they claim.

If you're a dog fancier, but all of the above seems like just too much bother, we can direct you to wonderful literature about real dogs and to some artistic tributes that might be just the ticket for a good read on a hot August day.  Get to know Donald McCaig's sheepherders (Eminent Dogs, Dangerous Men), the extraordinary dogs Sherry Bennett Warshauer describes in Everyday Heroes, or Caroline Hebard's search-and-rescue dogs (So That Others May Live).