First Line:

~ I suggest you sit down and if you've not already done so, cover your dog's ears ~

Thus begins the effort of the author to convince us that dogs are better than cats.

Bradley Trevor Greive is quick to stress that he is simply "prodog, not anticat. And he takes us on a humorous exploration of the qualities that make a dog a dog and a cat a cat.

Serious cat lovers (an I am one of those) should not be offended as we know the truth. Cats are better than dogs.

And dogs are better than cats. (I am also a dog lover.)

This is a wonderful collaboration between New York Times best selling author Bradley Trevor Greive and award-winning photographer Rachael Hale. The photographs are what make the book. Enjoy! (4 stars) ( )

What would appear to be just a funny books about dogs versus cats actually makes some very good points and would get even the most catty cat person to think about getting a dog. Plus at over 200 pages, the pictures are almost cute enough to make the book worth it. ( )

Why Dogs Are Better Than Cats by Bradley Trevor Greive is a tongue in cheek look at why dogs have become “Man’s Best Friend.” When it came down to claiming the title, dogs had some stiff competition from all sorts of animals and Greive explains why many didn’t make the cut, including cats, who he claims, “were gonged off the stage in the preliminary rounds due to lack of interest (on their part).” He includes the full bracket to the championship and according to Grieve, it came down to the dog and the lemur. Grieve does concede that cats do have some good qualities, but in the end, according to him, they fall short of dogs.

The photographs in Why Dogs Are Better Than Cats were taken by Rachael Hale and they’re simply gorgeous, like the one on the cover. They are mostly of dogs, but do include cats and a few other animals. I kept stopping while I was reading to show them to Carl.

I love the fact that Grieve includes a list of questions that you should ask yourself before you buy a dog and encourages getting your pet from an animal shelter.

There’s not a lot of text in Why Dogs Are Better Than Cats, but I still enjoyed it. It’s a book I’ll pick up over and over to look at the beautiful animals. This book would make a great gift because animal lovers will enjoy the humorous text and the photographs. My only complaint is that part of the text is in the back of the book under notes (they’re comments, not footnotes) and it got tiresome flipping to the back to read them. ( )