Legacy of the Puppy is a book designed for puppy-lovers, especially if you're in the market for a puppy.

The purpose of this book is to discuss 99 different AKC breeds, organized by group.  Each breed receives at least two pages.  Physical traits such as size, weight, and coat type are charted, and several paragraphs describe the breed's origin, personality, and traditional uses.  The text portion (by Hiromi Nakano) is brief, and in some cases, lacking.  The Bernese Mountain Dog, for instance, receives just three small paragraphs, barely touching the surface of this magnificent dog.

But the main point of this book is the photographs.  For each breed, one or two adults are shown, and several puppies.   Usually four or five puppies are shown, sometimes more. The puppies are shown in various positions - sleeping, nursing, playing, interacting with each other and with the adults.

The captions for the puppies always tell you the puppy's age (in days) when the photograph was taken.  I'm happy to have this information, but I don't like that such a small range of ages is usually shown.  For instance, there are six Miniature Schnauzer puppies. Four are 40 days old, two are 36 days old.  Those four extra days don't make a whole lot of difference, so all the pictures look the same.  Worse, on the Great Dane page, there are only three puppies, and all are 46 days.  A Great Dane changes very quickly; it would be much better to show 30 days, 50 days, and 75 days for this breed.  They did a much better job for the bulldog, where they show 50 days and 88 days.  With a range like that, it's much easier to see the progression from puppy to adult.

I have no complaints about the quality of the photographs.  The pictures are gorgeous.  I love the various expressions captured by the photographers, Ueki and Fukuda.  I sense that they love puppies, as much as I do, and delight in capturing their very essence through pictures.  On the Afghan Hound page, for instance, one puppy is sound asleep.  His neighbor is bowing in a play position.  And a third puppy is cuddling with his Momma. 

In most cases, they chose enough puppies to display major variances in the breed.  For the Border Collie, they show the typical black and white pattern, but they also included the much rarer tan and white.  Pomeranians are shown in many different color schemes, as are Poodles.

Also included: a table of contents, a brief description of each breed grouping, followed by their breeds, introductions to the history of dogs, and to the art of photographing dogs, a discussion about raising puppies, a list of diseases prevalent in each breed, a glossary, and an index.

I would call this book a "decent starter" for someone looking to get a puppy, who wants to research various breeds.  But a more in-depth breed-specific reference book should be consulted before commitment.

Recommended: Yes