Dog Lover's Trivia: Weird and Wacky Facts about Our Canine Friends

by Mike Darton

Dog Lover’s Trivia is an irresistible potpourri of canine facts, embracing the essential, the trivial, the intriguing, and the extraordinary.

Schott’s Original Miscellany was a publishing phenomenon. It sired a host of sequels and parodies. But no matter how patiently and for how many years they begged, the potential canine readership was continually left to pine. Until now.

Dog Lover’s Trivia is how the original would have appeared had its creator been an obsessive dog owner. Or, indeed, a very literate dog. It parodies the randomness of entry and stylishness of design of the original, but is created entirely for dogs and their doting owners and admirers. The result is a fascinating collection of dog-related facts , including gems such The perfect coffee table book to paw through at random or the latest addition to the satire section of your home library, Dog Lover’s Trivia is, in short, the perfect companion for your perfect companion.

Genres: Dogs

96 pages, Hardcover

Published September 28, 2021

Reviews

[Kelly · Rating 3 out of 5]

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for providing this book in exchange for an honest review.
As a dog lover, this book immediately caught my attention. Who can resist a cover with an adorable, smiling dog.
This book is a bit dated in its statistics and would've been more interesting if it had up-to-date information. Despite that, there are some fun and interesting bits of trivia.

[Valerity (Val) · Rating 3 out of 5]

I just love this dog lover’s trivia book. It has so many different types of dog facts that I was very impressed with it. It kept me entertained for a long while, enjoying all of the things I’d never seen or known about before. Being a total dog lover, it was the perfect thing for me to dive into. Very informative, but I don’t think I’ll be able to memorize it all if I ever get into a match of trivia on dogs one day. Besides, some of the information is out of date by many years. It could use a good updating. Advance electronic review copy was provided by NetGalley, author Mike Darton, and the publisher.

[Teena in Toronto · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm a dog lover and that's why this book caught my eye. This book is a quick read and is full of very random trivia about dogs. I found most of it interesting.

The book was originally published in 2009 and some of the stats, like popular dog names, are from 2007. It would have been nice if they had updated these stats to current times rather than 14 year old information as it's probably no longer relevant. In addition, there are no sources for the stats so who knows if the information is true (the couple of things I Googled were correct) and how dated it is.

Blog review post: http://www.teenaintoronto.com/2021/09...

[Theediscerning · Rating 4 out of 5]

Back in the day charity shop shelves in the UK were stuffed with copies of Schott's Miscellany and all the thousands of offshoot volumes. I loved them, but they were hardly the kind of thing to leave on your shelves until the non-existent day you re-read them, and found them out of date. But the series lacked specific volumes concerning the other members of the household, and hence there were a "Sock's Feline Miscellany" and a "Spott's Canine" variant – both made by someone else, and both of which now retitled and brought to us afresh. That's as "afresh" as something containing 2006 doggy ownership data could be...

The pair of volumes at hand certainly keep the aesthetic and ethics of the originals, in that they are quite densely typeset, serious forms of trivia book. Nothing is over a full side, if that, and the gallimaufry of content comes at you with no structure – the subjects changing twice a page on average in very random fashion. One spread here covers the anatomy of the dog (complete with the etymology of a croupier, quite marvellously), the Iditarod race, Rin Tin Tin's origins as a knitted billet-doux, and more.

That more includes a couple of cut and pastes, or reversals, of the data as featured in the cat volume, but we can forgive that in a book this rich and fun to read. It may well be the case that the entity most edified by this is the dog-lover's bathroom windowsill, but I can't really object to my time spent perusing either of these volumes.

[Kaye · Rating 3 out of 5]

Dog Lover's Trivia is just as the title describes, lots of trivia about dogs. In no apparent order it covers many things like: average pups per breed, several Aesop's Fables featuring dogs, why the poodle haircut, and origins or work of specific breeds. This is a fun and easy read but some of the information is dated. I don't know why I would want to know the most common dog names in 2005 or most popular breeds in 2006. This book was originally released in 2009 and a few of those type of categories could easily be updated or eliminated. I think most disappointing for me is there are no photos of dogs in the book. With the cute dog on the cover I thought there would be photos and not drawings in the book. (I know it adds to the cost of printing.) Thank you to the NetGalley and Quarto Publishing for a temporary ARC in exchange for an honest review.

[Stacy · Rating 2 out of 5]

I thought this would be a fun read and geared towards kids, but it is written more for adults in an Encyclopedia type format, which affected my enjoyment of it.

It includes a lot of random facts including the history of Lassie and Rin Tin Tin, Aesop's fables, statistics on dog bites, dog diseases, breeds that have gone extinct, dogs on the Titanic and in the Bible, and so much more. If "dog" is in the name, you will most likely see it mentioned in this book.

[Ann · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have to admit I am a dog lover and I found this book fascinating. I picked up so many varied facts and have confess the trivia was fun to relate to fellow dog people. This is a companion to the Cat Lover's Trivia book , also by Mike Darton. There are no formal chapters, all the info is random and makes for easy stopping and starting. I received a copy of this ARC in exchange for a fair and honest review.

[Katie · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a book that the younger me would have devoured over and over again! I did enjoy it, but I am not quite as obsessed with dogs now as I was then. For any dog lover, however, this book is entertaining. I agree with other reviewers that it would have been nice to have up to date information.

Thanks to NetGalley for an advanced copy in exchange for my honest opinion.

[Caroline 'relaxing with my rescue dogs' · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a fun easy read and gave some interesting trivia facts about dogs which I would never have thought of.

I was given an advance copy by the publishers and netgalley but the review is entirely my own

[Mlochs421 · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting facts but most are outdated, definitely could have been updated for the 2017 printing date.

[Whitney Terrell · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a nice quick read. I learned a lot about not only my dog, but interesting facts about dogs in general.

[Steve WEST]

My wife brought me this book.If you own dogs this is very informative.Also has some short stories.

[Terry Kenny · Rating 4 out of 5]

A little dated, but still a nice little book. Enjoyed the quotes about our canine friends from various famous people. Also liked the author including extinct breeds I never knew about.