Dog Perfect: The User-Friendly Guide to a Well-Behaved Dog [Paperback]

Sarah Hodgson (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 13, 1995

Are you at the end of your leash with your dog? Tried everything and nothing seems to work? Don't give up hope—your dog can be DogPerfect, too, with the simple training instructions in this book. DogPerfect takes you through the basics step-by-step. Chapters include:

• Who Is Your Dog, and How Does He Learn?
• What You'll Need To Train Your Dog
• Starting Off On The Right Paw
• Basics For Your Best Friend
• Encyclopedia of Canine Etiquette

Your dog will learn how to Sit, Stay, Down, Come and Heel like the well-mannered dog you want him to be. At the same time you'll learn how you contribute to your dog's sense of self and how to boost your leadership status so your dog listens to and respects you. DogPerfect will have the two of you working together as a team in no time. 

You'll Learn How to:

• Stop your dog from pulling you down the street.
• Teach your dog to sit while greeting company.
• Housetrain your dog once and for all.
• Play fun and instructional games with your dog.
• Use the Teaching Lead to humanely calm and control your dog.
• Handle problem barking, chewing and digging and much more!

Editorial Reviews

From the Back Cover

The bestselling dog training guide – revised edition

Are you at the end of your leash with your dog? Tried everything and nothing seems to work? Don't give up hope–your dog can learn with the simple, proven training methods in this book. DogPerfect has helped thousands of dog owners transform their rowdy canines into well-behaved companions. Now, dog trainer Sarah Hodgson has refined her easy-to-follow, upbeat guide. Up-to-date chapters cover everything you need to know, step by step–from how your dog learns obedience basics to housetraining to dealing with anxiety.

Your dog will learn how to Sit, Stay, Settle Down, Come and Heel like the well-mannered companion you want him to be. DogPerfect is a positive, unintimidating guide that can help any dog owner–especially when the pooch in question is less than perfect. You'll discover how to:

• Use clicker, target and point training to spice up your lessons
• Stop your dog from pulling you down the street
• Teach your dog to Sit while greeting company
• Play fun and instructional games with your dog
• Handle problem barking, chewing, jumping and much more!

--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

About the Author

Sarah Hodgson is the owner of the Cooperative Canine in Golden Bridge, New York. She is a member of the Association of Pet Dog Trainers, The Society of North American Dog Trainers and the Dog Writers' Association of America. Sarah is co-author of the book You and Your Puppy, Training and Health Care for Puppy's First Year (Howell, 1995).

Product Details

• Paperback: 256 pages
• Publisher: Howell Book House; 1 edition (November 13, 1995)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 087605534X
• ISBN-13: 978-0876055342
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 7.4 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,725,419 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Sarah Hodgson has been a dog trainer for twenty years and owns Simply Sarah, Inc., a dog training school in Westchester, New York. She has written five books about dogs, including the bestselling DogPerfect and Puppies For Dummies.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

20 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great book for training your dog, August 5, 2000

By 

Darla McFarren (Hastings, NE USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Dog Perfect: The User-Friendly Guide to a Well-Behaved Dog (Paperback)

This book seems to be an excellent book for training your dog -- big or small. The author takes you from trying to understand your dog, to simple things you should need to train your dog, the first basic commands, moving on to harder things. At the end the author also outlines a variety of items to discipline your dog if your dog has problems of barking, chewing etc.

Not only is the book detailed, but set up in a way that you can easily read. Lists are very helpful in this book. The book also has interesting antecdotes about the author's experience with dogs which are separated out so that people who don't want to read them don't have to read them.

The content is good to help because it doesn't limit your options to one way of correcting your dog, but gives other ideas for those of us who are only a little creative. The book even talks about what games are good to play and has given me a few ideas for games for me and my dog.

My only problem with the book is the plug for a specially designed leash that the author sells. It does sound like a good leash for a dog that is kept inside most of the time. My dog is mostly outside and so the training with the special leash doesn't look that practical to me.

I think the best part of the book is the constant encouragement to the dog owners. The author tells us that training a dog depends on our attitude and does everything possible to keep our attitude to be helpful for training our dogs. One of the better dog-training books I have found.

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Essential for anyone who lives with a dog., November 16, 2005

By 

JK "JK" (Sedona, AZ) - See all my reviews

This review is from: DogPerfect, Second Edition (Paperback)

This is one of the best dog-training books I've read. I've had my Border Collie for 2 1/2 years and I've read several books, online articles, and even spoke with two different dog behaviorists and still managed to learn several things from Ms. Hodgson's book.

Scold the cookies, not the dog - what a great idea. Your dog gets the idea that the cookies are a bad thing & he should just leave them alone lest he be associated with them. He doesn't want you to think HE is bad, too!

Love it.

Thank you, Ms. Hodgson - I'm happy to recommend your book to everyone I know who needs some advice on living with their canine companions.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars THE Best Dog Training Book!, January 14, 2005

By 

jbx2usa "jbx2us" (MI, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: DogPerfect, Second Edition (Paperback)

I bought this book years ago, back in 1995, in it's first edition. Back then, I had a Siberian Husky who was more than difficult to train. I read the book and followed Sarah's advice on how to train my hard-headed and over-active pupil. It worked! Not only did it work, but it worked very well! The techniques in this book only took about 15-30 minutes of my time each day.

In the end, I was able to effectively train my dog, especially house train, in no time! I borrowed out the book and I never saw it again! I was overjoyed to see Sarah has released a second edition. I am getting a new puppy next month, and this is my book. I even found the first edition and bought that one as well! Thanks Sarah.