Customer Reviews

Click for Joy! Questions and Answers from Clicker Trainers and Their Dogs (Karen Pryor Clicker Books)

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2 star:		(2)
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I am a book junkie. If it's about clicker training, I have it. This is the best of the bunch. Easy to read. Cross-referenced. Indexed -- thank God. (Finally, an indexed clicker training book!) Complete answers to every question I ever had. Where was this book six years ago when I first learned to clicker train? Save yourself a lot of fumbling -- whether you're new or experienced, get this book if you have any interest in clicker training.

Love this book. I've clicker trained for several years. This book covers beginner through advanced material and helped me improve my training skills. It seems like all the other clicker books out there are strictly for beginners. This is the only one I've found that helped me take it to the next level. It's not a book I read just once -- I keep it with my dog stuff and refer to it whenever a question occurs to me.

I "met" Melissa Alexander online, and I've been impressed with her ever since. This book is wonderful, and I highly recommend it. It's not step-by-step instructions, but it's the best FAQ I could imagine. It answered every question I had before I knew I had it! My favorite thing is the cross-referencing. The answers I want are so easy to find!

This is a top notch book for everyone learning clicker training as well as a reference for those who have been training for a long time. The methods described in this book have been scientifically proven for decades both in laboratory research and in the "real world". The author of the foreword, Bob Bailey, has been using these techniques since the 1950s with amazing success. You can't force a dolphin to go out on 12 hour military missions in the open ocean and come back at the end of the day. You can teach that kind of behavior with clicker training. And people do it all the time.

If you make it worthwhile and painless for an animal (including human!) to learn, he remembers. You can train animals trainers from other techniques consider untrainable with the methods in this book. Even the common house cat becomes an EAGER learner with clicker training. (Who is front and center when I call my animals to train? THE CAT!)

There is no need to punish if you know how to make performing desirable behavior worthwhile- and this book teaches how to do that.

Buy this book!

I love this book and have given away 2 copies already. It's a fun book to use and explains easily how to train your dog while both of you are having fun and playing games.

I had read a number of books on Clicker Training, all of which were helpful to varying degrees, before I read Melissa Alexander's Click for Joy! As I read Click for Joy!, I realized this would have been the very best book to read first, as it covered all my questions so completely. Of course, it was a great book to read after having read all the other books I've read for the same reason. The way the author has organized the material is very helpful for all kinds of mind sets. Someone who wants to read the book through from A to Z gets great foundation before going onto more techical information, but if you are like me, when I read about something, I tend to have all kinds of questions that I'd like to address right now. Ms. Alexander has organized each page with cross references to more information on particular subjects on that page. The language is easy to understand, as though you are having a personal visit with Melissa. She also has a chapter explaining in detail how to train a number of basic behaviors to perfection... very detailed explanations. After going through these basic behaviors, she explains how to organize your own plan for trainng other behaviors. I highly recommend this book for anyone interested in Clicker Training.

I have found Peggy Tilman's book, Clicking with Your Dog, Step-by-Step in Pictures, to be a great companion book to Click for Joy! because it goes into picture detail for many more behaviors beyond the basic behaviors in Melissa Alexander's book. IF a person is limited in book funds and wants to understand clicker training, these are the two books I recommend.

What a great way to see what potential you have for correcting a mistake before you do it. I am training two pups at once. Sure enough, as soon as one of them gets it, the other does too. So, if I make a mistake they will both learn it. This book handles the individuality of each dog and lets you see ways to better your abilities by zeroing in on potential problems before they occur. I am using it with the excellent Clicking with your Dog book and think the set makes a perfect combination for the joy of clickertraining. Also, little hints like what kind of treats to use, alternates to food, etc. make this full of useful surprises. Also, the advice on how to make the behavior "perfect" lets you know how far to push each activity before moving on to the next. Great book!

This book is excellent in every way. Melissa Alexander writes in a style that is both substantial and understandable and this is one of the most user-friendly books I have ever read.

I am definitely a better clicker trainer as a result of having read this book. From now on when I recommend a book to get started with clicker training, it will be this one.

I've known about clicker training for years now, but I always dismissed it as a valid training method. I didn't see how you could reliably train a dog when you were dependent on a clicker and food treats. After reading this book I've had all my questions answered.

Melissa Alexander fully explains all aspects of clicker training, as well as some of the concepts of operant conditioning. The book is laid out in a Q & A format and each question has a sidebar with related questions to refer to. I found this feature incredibly useful as the questions in the sidebar were nearly always questions that had already popped into my head. She also offers quotes and success stories that are both encouraging and humorous (like the dog who unintentionally learned to put her head in a box instead of her toy). The sections covering reinforcement and punishment was very clear and really helped me to understand why this training method works so well.

While I wouldn't recommend this book as a stand-alone clicker manual (it's mainly about theory; not much on training specific behaviors), it's an excellent book for what it is. Definitely something you should add to your bookshelf if you're new to clicker training.

This book is a pleasure -- easy to use, practical, and chock-full of techniques all can use, with an underlying philosophy of kindness to dogs.

Dog training has entered a wonderful world of efficient, gentle work, done by persuading dogs to comply voluntarily. This book is a great example of this method.

There are no silly rules that cram your dog into a simplistic mold into which all dogs supposedly fit, but the knowledge to teach the dog you have, using its own tendencies and preferences.