I recently finished Secrets To Deal With An Hyperactive Leonberger: How to Make your Leonberger to STOP Chewing your Shoes, Pee on Your Bed, Pull the Leash, Jump Over People, Bark a Lot and Bite People Paperback – November 26, 2021 by Mark Mendoza. The dimensions are 6 x 0.19 x 9 inches, and the weight is 6.4 ounces, ISBN 979-8774384570, and it currently costs $19.99 on Amazon in the US.
In summary: Secrets To Deal With An Hyperactive Leonberger, is a short Leonberger book that is a fairly generic dog behavior book and not really about Leonbergers. In addition, the book needs an editor, it does not have page numbering, no pictures, and considering that it is also a short book I don’t think the price $19.95 is justified. That last statement may not be appropriate for an Amazon review.
Below is my review of Secrets To Deal With An Hyperactive Leonberger by Mark Mendoza. I improved it a bit over the Amazon review. Click here to see my original Amazon review. BTW I gave the book three stars.
Good Advice on Hyperactivity in Dogs But There Are Issues With The Book
This is how the book begins; “My name is Mark Mendoza, and if you are reading this, then probably you know a few things about me;”. Well, I did not know anything about the author when I started reading this short book, which makes me wonder if I was the intended audience. As the title implies, this book is focused on dog training, specifically how to handle hyperactivity in Leonbergers. The author states that he is not a trainer but that he has a lot of knowledge of dog psychology. After reading this book I tend to agree, he does know what he is talking about, and I think he takes a very sensible and modern approach to basic dog training and how to handle hyperactivity and stress in dogs and how to prevent a dog from running away. We could certainly apply this knowledge to our somewhat hyperactive mini-Australian Shepherd.
However, I also had some issues with this book. I am a former Leonberger owner, and I saw no information in this book that applied specifically to Leonbergers. You would think the history section might contain some Leonberger specific information, but the word Leonberger was never used in that section. The book is a generic dog training book with the word Leonberger frequently used instead of the word dog. Making it seem like the book is specifically for Leonbergers when it is not, is not OK in my book. In addition, the sentence structure is frequently faulty, which makes me think the author is not a native English speaker, and there are also a lot of typos. The book needed an editor. There is also no page numbering, and the text is large resulting in less content than the stated 83 pages would imply. There are no pictures. Considering that the book is quite short and has not pictures I also think the price is too high. Therefore, despite the sensible approach to dog training and the handling of dog hyperactivity I am giving it three stars.
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Finally, if you would like to learn about more about my book and find out where to buy it, click here or here. You can also click the image below to buy it from Amazon. All royalties are donated to the Leonberger Health Foundation International.
Leonberger Life 
22 replies on “Review of Secrets To Deal With An Hyperactive Leonberger”
The book doesn’t quite meet the expectation, Thomas. I think you’re right that it’s not justified for that price. 83 pages with #8,618,079 rank in Books. You’re generous to give 3 stars. I wonder why the author names the book as dealing with An Hyperactive Leonberger when the content applies to general dog training. 🙂
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Yes, I think you are right. The book was not up to expectations and still expensive. I’ve come across several generic dog books labeled as Leonberger books. Sometimes the author has written a lot of books using the same text, just replacing the book title and the word “dog” or another breed with “Leonberger”. I’ve read a Leonberger book in which the author forgot to replace the word “Tibetan Mastiff” with “Leonberger” in a few places. It becomes obvious that way. One author had written 167 dog breed books looking almost identical. He certainly could not have had much experience with 167 dog breeds. In other cases, the author wrote just one dog book, but it was not a Leonberger book even if he called it that. In those cases, I think that the author thought he would stand out by picking a specific breed. There are 70,000 dog books on Amazon after all. However, it doesn’t work.
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I just laughed about the “find” and “replace,” Thomas. I can’t imagine someone could write 167 different dog breeds books.
I actually know one blogger who published many books, but used one key word (plus others) for all the books. That specific key word got all his books on #1 book because of no competition. When he posted #1 again, I just laughed.
Good for you writing that book review
I hope your didn’t pay $20 for it.
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That is amazing. I have to admit I am dying to know what that keyword was, not that I am planning to use it, just curious. I saw a Leonberger book that was listed under the category …. veterinary care for aquarium fish …something like that. However, it did not work, and Amazon pulled the book.
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Haha, Amazon is not to be fooled. Oh, his poetry book has some poems about the ocean. He used a word to do with the ocean and got #1. Then he used it for all the books regardless. Key words are a big thing in publishing. I took time to check on books similar to mine and studied what they listed as key words. Some were like your examples. I couldn’t justify some for my book.
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“Key words are a big thing in publishing”. I did not know you could see the keywords of other authors. I spent about 10 seconds picking keywords. Maybe I should revisit that. Thanks for the info Miriam.
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I search for the top 100 books (ebook) in German Shepherd. When the “top 100” page shows up, click the #1 book, scroll down to the publication info. It should tell you something like #1 in dogs, #24 in German Shepherd, etc. On the left panel, it shows the train of categories.
I can list up to 10 key words, but you have to call KDP to speak to someone. When I call, I give them the train, book – animal – dog – German Shepherd, etc.
It’s fun to see how authors list the lady words for their books.
Have fun checking out.
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That’s very interesting information. Thank you Miriam.
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Just cemented how I searched for other authors’ key words.
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Thank you Miriam. I will try that.
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Sounds like another person who slapped “Leonberger” in the title to sell a book.
Hope you all weathered yesterday’s severe storm okay. We got baseball-sized hail, but we are okay!
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Yes maybe, but it never works.
Baseball sized hails that is crazy. We had thunderstorms and flooding downtown but that is it. Once we had ping pong ball sized hail and we had to replace the roof and my car was outside and needed body shop repairs. Three and a half years ago a tornado destroyed our neighborhood and we had damage on the house for $50,000.00, but at least our house stood unlike the neighbors. But that wasn’t yesterday.
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The tag line fits my Lab (except for the chewing on shoes) so it does sound generic. For the brewser (sp?) that is a Leonberger, I might have expected “How to foster a sense of his surroundings (so he doesn’t knock things over)” or “Affection from the (very) large dog”. Thanks for your insights.
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Yes that’s the thing, dog behavior is very generic. There are some breed specific differences. Leonbergers like to put their paws on people’s shoulders or chest and go in their faces with licks and bumps. Leonbergers are on average very confident and unafraid dogs. They love to swim like Labradors. However, none of that was mentioned. It was just how to deal with anxiety and hyperactivity in dogs and the generic training advice that’s the same for all dogs. However, he did have a very insightful way of talking about dog psychology.
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It’s guys like Mark Mendoza who give self-published authors a bad name. Blecch!
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Yes you are right
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I have to wonder if Mark Mendoza uses the same text “Secrets to Deal with a Hyperactive Cocker Spaniel” with “Leonberger” find-and-replaced with “cocker spaniel.”
It’s the same thing as an earlier book: solid advice but attached to an unusual dog breed without justification as a way of “specialization.”
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Yes that is exactly the way a couple of previous books I read were composed. It could very well be the case here as well. I did not check.
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Thanks for this review although this is not a book I would even have considered reading.
I am a Leonberger owner and have met a few Leo’s but I am by no means an expert on all the behaviours of Leo’s. I would not however put the word “hyperactivity” and “Leonberger” in the same sentence. In any of the books I have read about Leonbergers I have never seen any reference to hyperactivity.
I would then have to assume that this book is really about dogs in general and not specifically Leonbergers.
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Yes you are absolutely right. I have to admit I suspected such already from the title as well. However, I am doing a little project. I am reading and reviewing every Leonberger book on Amazon that is written in English. My next Leonberger book contain 111 photos, none of them of a Leonberger, and the word Leonberger is not even used anywhere in the book. It’s very common.
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Wow! It seems a little underhanded because there are few books on the Leonberger breed. Just by putting the word “Leonberger” in the title prompts an unsuspecting new Leo owner to purchase it. They will then only get generic info on dogs and not Leonberger specific info. As a Leo owner myself the specific breed info is what I would want given that the breed is uncommon.
I really appreciate the work you are doing on reviewing these books and saving me money!!!
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Yes I agree. There are many good Leonberger books but there are also many books that are just generic dog books and they slap the word Leonberger in the title or replace the word dog (or another breed) with the word Leonberger, which is kind of fooling the buyer. Then there are also Leonberger books that are so poorly edited that you can’t read them or they have lots of factual errors. At the end I will make a list of about 35-40 books.
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