Prehistoric Pets: Buying, Training, and Caring for your Dinosaur by Laura Joy Rennart

THERE IS A DINOSAUR FOR YOU!

THERE'S A DINOSAUR FOR EVERY KID AND A KID FOR EVERY DINOSAUR.

This guide will help you find the right one for you.

With a warning that "some dinosaurs need a little more housebreaking than others," Laura Rennart's and Marc Brown's new tongue-in-cheek guide to caring for pet dinosaurs, Buying, Training, and Caring for Your Dinosaur, (Knopf, 2009) is off and running.

Need a watch-dino? Try Tricerotops or Tyranosaurus Rex! ("Post a BEWARE OF DINOSAUR warning; the mail carrier will appreciate this!") Your T. Rex is an unparalleled watch-dino, but a sturdy leash and obedience lessons are a must for this one.

Now Old three-horn-face is also great as a ring-toss target for birthday parties, and a Diplodiclus also has party possibilities. With one of those you have your own roller coaster!

Training? Well, that takes a little forethought. Before undertaking the sit command, be sure to check underneath your dino.

Roll Over? Don't even go there!

Hygiene? When your dino needs a bath, the carwash is best! Be forewarned, however, that an Ankylosaurus is difficult to groom. Exercise? Hit the water! Dinos make excellent floatation devices, and some have awesome waterslide possibilities.

Buying, Training, and Caring for Your Dinosaur has some, er, fantastic advice for the would-be pet owner, but there's one bit of counsel I'd like to question:

Potential Health Problem: Extinction (but not for millions of years)

Uh, guys! Read your First Book of Paleontology lately?