How to Be Your Dog's Best Friend will tell you how to select a dog to fit your lifestyle and where to find it, how to read a pedigree, how and when to train, about the proper use of praise and discipline, how to feed and care for your dog, about dogs and protection, about dog behavior problems and how to correct them. A complete obedience course is included, and there are specific chapters on city, suburban, and country dogs. There is even a chapter on how to deal with the death of a pet.

An introduction to training : Myths, mutts, and monks ; How New Skete went to the dogs ; What is a dog? ; Some important terms ; Selecting a puppy or older dog ; Researching canine roots ; How to read a pedigree ; Where to find training ; The concept of praise in dog training ; Discipline: the taboo topic ; What's cooking? -- Environments : Canine environments ; City life ; Suburban life ; Country life ; Outdoor life -- Sensitivity exercises : Your dog may be lonely ; Where is your dog this evening? ; Playing Pavlov ; Silence and your dog ; Radio training ; Massage for dogs ; The round-robin recall ; One for the road ; Avoid canine incarceration! ; Children and training -- Starting off right : Puppy training -- Standard obedience exercises : Starting out ; Equipment ; Heeling ; The sit and stay ; The recall ; The down ; The down-stay ; About obedience competition -- Problems : House-training ; Chewing, digging, and jumping up ; Protection training and attack training ; Alarm barking ; Aggressive behavior, or How to deal with a canine terrorist ; Behavior in and out of cars ; Social implications of training ; When a dog dies: facing the death of a dog -- A parting word : Dogs and new awareness.