Customer Reviews

Hey Pup, Fetch It Up!: The Complete Retriever Training Book

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

The book is hardcover, good binding, average quality paper, standard font size but the good layout making for easy reading. A substantial book, with 500 pages.

First published in 1979, Bill Tarrant was well ahead of his time; he's been using praise & reward training methods long before the expression "operant" became vogue.

Primarily directed to training retrievers, Tarrant's method & style is so honest - almost anyone wishing to train any breed will find the book useful and enlightening ... If there is one consistent message that comes through Tarrant's book, it is - NEVER HURT THE DOG!

Perhaps what makes this different from many others - is it becomes patently obvious even after a few pages that Tarrant is not teaching anything he has not tested & tried, he is himself unafraid watch, learn and try different methods.

Consisting of 20 chapters, the author takes the reader from how to choose a pup to training the first fetch, from how to transport a dog to emergency first aid, from housetraining a puppy to teaching the dog to force fetch. When & how to introduce a dog to water? ... How to train for a soft mouth? ... Gun-shyness, what to do? ... Tarrant deals with all and more ...

The book lays out training methods & schedules and offers potential solutions to difficulties & problems that may be encountered. Tarrant has developed his own training methods and procedure - some of which are rather novel. For example, he advocates using puppies to teach each other the beginnings of how to `stay' and to give to the lead.

Each topic is explained in-depth; each stage of training dealt with in detail.

Written with wonderful humour, the book is filled with anecdotes and stories collected from a lifetime of training & living with dogs, the book is both entertaining and educational. More than just a training manual, the book teaches us how to better appreciate our dogs, respect the individual spirit within each animal and have better understanding of our canine friend.

A wonderful read.

Fetch it up goes one step further than other training books, in that it addresses the next steps when your dog does not respond to the initial instruction. Covers all aspects and needs for training a hunting retriever.

Bill's technique of no force shed a new light to my ideas on how dogs should be trained. I was on my way to training my newest retriever just liked I'd trained many dogs before. Bill's book shed a new light on things. I tried it and it works! I recommend to anyone, give it a try before you knock his technique!

Has an excellent approach to force retrieving, that wont hurt your dog. Introducing pups to all the basics that a good gun dog must know. Good for all handlers first time or professional. This detailed book is what makes it so wonderful. If I owned one book it would be Bill Tarrants Hey Pup, Fetch It Up! : The Complete Retriever Training Book.

i did find this book useful but i'm a bit confused by the author chasitising the field trials as taking the dog out of the dog in the beginning of the book and then praising the fields trials as God sent, to show off what a retriever can really do. another point the author says "WHY IN AMERICA DO WE USE GIMMICKS AND WEIRD TOOLS..." and yet the book is like the insiders guide to the gimmicks and tricks the PRO uses to make a great retriever. i agree that there is some advice that is not very to the point (cook book style for us beginners), but most of it, is clear and easy to read. there is alot of good advice but it is not uptodate with the new click and treat training techinques. There is one thing that the author is right on target is his 4 T's. He seemed to be ahead of his time with his ideas about not treating the dog like he was a piece of meat.

I am an amateur at dog training. This book has a lot of personal stories that vaguely relate to training. Terrant has the same approach to training that a person would use with a child that misbehaves, "If you don't do as I say, I'm going to give you a time out!". This didn't work for my dog and set back her training. I recently purchased "Water Dog" by Wolters. This book is more to the point, half the reading, and works.

I found this book to be very helpful in understanding my pups and how they saw me.I feel this book saved my pups and myself alot of grief and misery.These dogs are wonderful creatures and they want to please,give this book a try, I think you like.Mike Rogers

I bought this book when we got our first Chesapeake Bay Retriever pup, because I knew Chessies were a difficult breed and needed obediance training. Chessies are known for being stubborn.

What I was really looking for was a book with guidelines or recommendations on dog training. I knew a little bit and had some older books, but I was looking for something a bit better organized.

This book had a very engaging style and is enjoyable to read, but it's more like "memoirs of a dog trainer". It is definitely not the book to read if you are looking for a dog training manual. It's a fun book, however, if you want to read about a dog trainer's experiences.

I was troubled about my review because it really breaks down as follows:
5 stars if you want a fun, chatty book about a dog trainer's experiences
2 stars if you are looking for a dog training manual--because you have to sift through all the experiences to see what he did or didn't do as far as training is concerned.

Hope this helps others make the decision. It's not a bad book if you buy it for the right reason.

While the book has a few interesting anecdotes and the author clearly loves dogs it is far from a clear and concise training manual. The constant anecdotal style and informal writing had me skipping pages to get to the techniques. My biggest issue with the book is the authors suggestion to short tie a pup and leave it alone for a few hours. This does not jive with his no harm to the dog attitude according to all the other dog training manuals out there.

This is a funny, engaging book that is very easy to read. This guy has clearly spent his life working with dogs and they are his passion. Ten months ago, I bought my first dog, Zipper. He is a cross between a Chocolate Lab and a German Wire Haired Pointer. Zipper is a way better dog because of Hey Pup. This is a fantastic book that I refer to again and again. Zipper is well behaved, and can follow complex commands and at ten months he can do triple blind retrieves with ease.

Here is the deal. If you are looking for a book that gives you an outline in a concise format about first do this and then that, and then move here for the third step you will be disappointed. Go find another book and then train your dog, and then you will be disappointed.

Most of this book is written from stories from the author's vast experience training dogs. What the author is trying to do, subtly, is to teach you how to be a dog trainer, how to speak and act in a way that the dog can understand what you want. The thing is, I could have started working Zip with a to do list, and I could have spent a lot of time and failed, because I would not have understood how Zip would have learned. I would not have understood that the seven things that I was doing out of habit was sending overpowering messages to Zip that would work in contradiction to my goals. I would not have understood the feedback that my dog was giving me, and would have fouled myself up in the process.

Training a dog is an easy way to re-learn that we are all our own worst enemies. This book did a fantastic job helping me get out of my own way and helped me teach the dog in a way that he could understand and I could be successul. This book teaches you that the excercises you use to train the dog are not all that important, and it teaches you that how you do the excercises you do, and how you interact in every interaction is of utmost importance.

If you have a dog, you are always training, even if you think you are not. The 27 short daily interactions you have with your dog matter more than the one half hour training session in the evening. This book teaches you how to be a decent trainer (pack leader) rather than giving you a list of action items.