Customer Reviews

Feisty Fido: Help for the Leash-Reactive Dog

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1 star:		(1)

 

 

I have a rescued dog that is nuts-aggressive on a leash. I have read sooooo many dog training/behavior books, and this one is one of the best. Why? 1) It gets right to the point. 2) There are only 3 main techniques to remember and practice (plus a few "panic button" tactics). 3) It's fewer than 60 pages.

This book is easy to understand and doesn't muddy the issues with a lot of extra stuff. The techniques are non-violent but work. I've been through several dog trainers that told me that I wasn't correcting my dog hard enough so he wasn't getting the message. Things were only getting worse. The corrections were only making him more agitated, so that he began aggressing earlier and earlier when he saw another dog.

This book helps you train your dog to have a different reaction to whatever sets him off so that his habit is to look at you when another dog (or person) comes around, instead of freaking out.

McConnell anticipates that things always don't go as planned; one heading is titled, "Oops! My Dog Looked Away Before I Said Okay." She also gives suggestions for troubleshooting.

I highly recommend this booklet!

I heard Pat speak on the subject of dog agression last year at the Pet dog trainers assocaition. This book fills out the notes from that session. An incredible assest for trainers dealing with all levels of agression in dogs. I have used the methods with good sucesson three client cases. Reading this gives trainers more options for dealing with feisty fido's that show up with unhappy owners.

This book is primarily for dogs aggressive on leash, same dogs off leash are fine with most, if not all, other dogs. It is only one of 28 catagories of aggression or combination thereof. The benefit to getting this booklet is that 1) you can determine if this is really the problem before you invest in a lot of more expensive books that deal with all manner of aggression. AND 2) You should be working with a trainer on ANY kind of aggression issue. This booklet will help you to know what type of methods are likely to be effective and you will have something to refer to as you are working with the trainer - I would not work with anyone who is not familiar and endorses at least some of McConnell's positive training recommendations.

Her booklets in general cover more information with more pages than you will find in a single chapter of a lot of training or dog problem books. This gives you 59 pages dealing with just one very common, very specific issue! You would get far less for a lot higher price if you brought a book on a more general behavior topic.

If you found the booklet useful, great! If you didn't, be glad you didn't spend more for it, quit yer bitchin and donate it to a rescue group who can use it - it's tax deductable

I had read McConnell's book The Other End of the Leash and really appreciated her scientific approach to the dog-human relationship. I rescued a big mix (3 years old, 70 pounds) about a year ago and once he got used to life with me and got his confidence up he started acting like a maniac on the leash when we would see other dogs. I took him to 2 rounds of obedience training which helped our bond and was good for his brain, but didn't do much for his "leash reactivity" as McConnell calls it. So I went online to see what I could find and ended up buying Feisty Fido as well as the Cautious Canine.

I have been following Feisty Fido to the letter for 2 to 3 weeks and have already started to see results. I bought the equipment that she recommends (leash, collar, and bait bag) and am following the regiment exactly. It's a lot of work, but it's totally worth it to not own the Neighborhood Menace. The book is an excellent step by step way to rehabilitate a leash reactive dog. Feisty Fido is a program to correct one behavior, but I think the method could be applied to any kind of fear-induced reactive behavior.

I wholeheartedly recommend this book.

This book is short, and clearly written. It is often funny, and is very easy to understand. The author goes into enough detail and gives advice on enough side issues (car aggression, techniques for specific kinds of dogs or owners) that I get the sense that she has worked these principles for a very long time with pretty much every kind of dog out there. In other words, at no point did I think, "but what about my dog, he's different because" without the author addressing the issue a few paragraphs later.

If you want volume for your book-spending money, you may be a little unhappy with how short the book was, but I was relieved by it -- I wanted to finish the book and start applying the training ASAP, so the shorter the better.

The "watch" technique is working for my dog. He's not "cured", but we are having positive events -- I got him to watch me while we were in my truck instead of lunging and barking at a dog that was walking by. He also let a cow (we hike, and ranchers let their cows out in the high country to graze) walk within ten feet of us and did not even bark. He actually stayed calm and kept looking back to me for treats. Maybe he doesn't mind cows (!), but staying that calm near another strange animal is new behavior.

I still expect it to take several months before he lets a dog go by us on the trail without trying to tear it apart, but I am seeing very small results just one week into using the watch command. Like the author suggests, we are working with easy to moderate situations, and just getting those down before we move on to high stress situations.

I have worked with 2 different $80 an hour dog trainers on this problem with my dog, and while they did teach me helpful things, I think I've gotten more useful information out of this book. If you can't afford a trainer, and you feel like you can't go another day with your dog acting like a maniac, definitely give this book a try.

I just took a class with my two dogs, both rescue animals. One is leash reactive due to nerves/fear of other dogs. My other dog is leash reactive from barrier aggression toward the leash. Two problems. One answer. This book.

I was very lucky to have a dog trainer in my town offering a special class for leash reactive dogs. This book was the first thing he handed out. He asked all of us to read the book as prep for the first class with dogs. Best homework anyone has ever given me!

It is a quick and easy read. The tone is upbeat. No time is wasted getting to the good stuff.

I'm very happy to have taken my dogs to a professional and to have this book to help me continue to practice out in the real world. I agree with other's reviews that it is very important to work with a professional, although it is expensive. Getting feedback on what you are doing right and wrong is very valuable. This is a big challenge to face alone.

As a final note, on our last day of class I and my husband had a short personal chat with the instructor. He stated that there are only 4 professionals he knows of in my state that focus on this type of work. And he told us that if he had to choose just one area to continue to teach in dog training, this would be it. To him (and us) it is so important to arm dog owners with helpful and hopeful strategies for their feisty fidos. There is noting sadder than a dog confined to a life behind closed doors because the owner gave up or was too scared or uneducated to face the dog's bad behavior on leash.

This short book is a cheap and cheerful guide to dealing with leash aggression in dogs. The author suggests reasons that dogs may behave in an aggressive manner when on leash, and then goes on to describe three simple and positive exercises that owners can use to manage or change their dog's on-leash behaviour.

The booklet is well written and easy to understand, and the exercises are easy to implement. I imagine the information would be very useful for the owners of fear aggressive dogs - which to be fair, make up the majority of leash aggressive dogs. However, it has several limitations that prevent it being universally relevant.

Most importantly, this book only addresses dogs that attack due to fear or insecurity. Little mention is given to dogs that aggress for other reasons such as medical problems, misdirected prey drive, dominance issues or innate high fight drive. And although the suggestions in the book would probably work very well to desensitise a fear aggressive dog to the presence of other dogs, I know for a fact that they would be less useful to treat the less common dog who actually finds fighting self-reinforcing. No information is provided about how to recognise, or how to treat, a dog that isn't merely fearful of other dogs.

Secondly, although I suppose this short booklet can't be expected to include all relevant information, I feel that leaving out all mention of how to deal with an aggressive dog on a daily basis is a fairly big omission. Information on how to manage an aggressive dog's lifestyle is very important, especially for dogs that display signs of aggression not just to strange dogs, but also towards their human or canine family. There are several "hands off" lifestyle approaches that can really help with aggression, such as the commonly quoted "Nothing in Life is Free" programme, that could easily have been included in this booklet.

Thirdly, the authors are from the "purely positive" school of thought, and claim that any form of punishment (and especially any form of training collar) is of no use at all in dog-dog aggression. This is true as a general principle, and probably universally true for fear aggressive dogs - and for everyone's sake, positive based training is indeed the only type of training you would want to suggest a novice trainer attempt at home with an aggressive animal. However, when used under the guidance of an experienced and skilled trainer, aversive training collars and low-stim e-collar "crittering" can be very useful for SOME non-fearful aggressive dogs. Yet in this booklet no information is given about what to do, or where to go, if the suggested methods don't work for your dog.

In short - if you have a leash aggressive dog you might as well buy this booklet; it is cheap, cheerful and has some useful practical suggestions. But please don't give up on your dog if these methods don't fix him. There's a lot more information out there!

This brief, concise guide does not pretend to be a comprehensive tome for curing canine aggression; what it does address is one aspect of canine behavior that is troublesome to many owners--leash aggression. As a trainer, I see many people who understand that their dogs might not ever play off-leash at a dog park, but would like to be able to take them for a daily walk. The majority of the time that is a realistic goal, and this book explains how it can be achieved.

McConnell explains the foundation skills owners should teach their dogs, such as giving attention and an emergency U-turn, as well as detailing when to use each one. She explains how to begin as well as how to progress through the behavior modification process. The overall approach is gentle, humane, and based on sound scientific principles. While McConnell is a recognized expert in the field, she has a gift for explaining theory and techniques in language that the average dog owner can easily understand. She and Karen London, a fellow Ph.D., have produced a guide that is well organized, easy to follow, and extremely helpful.
- Nicole Wilde, author Help for Your Fearful Dog: A Step-by-Step Guide to Helping Your Dog Conquer His Fears and So You Want to be a Dog Trainer (2nd edition)

This is a short and straight book on how to deal with a very common and specific issue. It explains in great detail how to apply the method developed by the authors, consisting of one command and 2 or 3 "emergency commands". Like most things in dog training, the commands are very simple to undertand, but demand a lot of patience and training to be useful in a real-life situation. The authors know it and give a lot of details on how to apply different levels of difficulty, how to do a training session, what to do when things go wrong and insights on WHY the dog is misbehaving on-leash.

I definetly recommend this book to anyone who has a dog with similar issues - on-leash agression toward other dogs - or trainers who want to learn more about it. I'm already applying this commands with my dog, and we're getting better results every day, although it's a work for weeks/months of training. It's not for dogs who are agressive even when off-leash. It's not for owner/dogs with no training experience, for I think it will be really hard to apply if you've never teached your dog some basic commands (heel/sit/stay).

Thank you! This little booklet has helped me get my little "feisty fido" under control without spending hundreds in behaviorist/training bills! He learned the "watch" command immediately and although we have just started (in the last couple of weeks) we're making tremendous progress! As soon as I'm aware of another dog I begin with the tools she's provided us and I couldn't ask for better results! Both of us are happy and sane campers! Outside of seeing dogs on walks on a daily basis where we have used her techniques, there have been a couple occasions where we have come around a corner face to face with another dog and I quickly use the commands we've learned and off we go for a little run in the other direction! She's covered everything in this tiny little booklet! It's been fabulous! I highly recommend this to anyone with a "feisty fido"! Thank you-thank you-THANK YOU Ms. McConnell!!!!!