Families with boys often find the world reacts to them in mock horror. Even though parents love their sons, privately they admit that boys can be a handful to raise--they are boisterous, competitive, reckless, distractable. The challenge of wills between parent and son starts early, and the quest to civilize young bulls may seem hopeless some days. Yet believers know that God has given them children as a gift of heaven, specially chosen for their particular families and marked as a blessing. If that's so, why does it seem so hard? How can we prepare these boys to serve God when it's all we can do to make it through another day? Isn't there a better way? Raising Real Men: Surviving, Teaching and Appreciating Boys shows the answer is emphatically yes. Written by the parents of six boys, Raising Real Men provides hope and encouragement to families with sons. Starting from the premise that God made boys to become men, Hal and Melanie Young offer Biblical principles and tested, practical ideas for training the manly virtues that can drive parents and teachers up the wall. This is a practical guide to equipping the hearts and minds of boys without breaking or losing your own. "...earthy, realistic, humorous, and scriptural ..." -- Douglas Wilson, author, Future Men "This is just what the doctor ordered for parents who want to raise capable Christian men of character." -- John Rosemond, author, Parenting By The Book

The first comprehensive expose on damage dogs and their families suffer from excessive crating, both in puppy mills and private homes. Dogs Hate Crates reveals that many owners who buy their dogs rhinestone collars and call them "babies" also lock them in small cages for 18-23 hours a day. And although "crate training" is proven to cause hundreds of physical, emotional and social problems and is a poor method for behavior and housetraining, many dog industry "experts", motivated by $50 Billion in greed, are attempting to persuade America that "dogs love crates". Free of emotional bias, Dogs Hate Crates details scientific and neurologic research, expert opinions and true case studies to demonstrate hundreds of serious symptoms caused by excessive crating, ranging from fear to dislike of humans. The book also contrasts cases of criminally abusive crating, puppy mill raids and atrocities against dogs with quotes from well-loved animal behavior experts on dogs transforming lives as nature's ambassadors and physical healers. And the authors provide effective behavior shaping and housetraining instructions as alternatives to crating. Contemporary cultural trends make America vulnerable to crating propaganda at home; and allow commercial puppy mill breeders who keep dogs caged their entire lives to sell as many as 4 million pups a year to unsuspecting consumers. Dogs Hate Crates examines the relationship between monetary profit and the growing popularity of caging dogs, and identifies surprising players in the pet industry and beyond that likely benefit in the millions, and billions, from dogs' and owners' distress. This groundbreaking book is meant to inspire further action and investigation by behavior experts, veterinarians, scientists, journalists/media and government- and everyone who cares about animals- to remedy one of the biggest abuses of dogs today. (Dogs Hate Crates is the new updated version of the book originally titled Caged Love.)