Customer Reviews

Playtraining your dog

5 star:		(11)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

This was one of the first books on training that mentions prey/play drive, and is an interesting casual read for the dog obedience enthusiast.

In essence, training in play (or prey) drive means rewarding the obedient dog with a tug or chase game, instead of a food treat. This system is very useful when training breeds that have little desire to work for their dinner, but have a strong instinct to chase - breeds like the author's greyhounds. However, Ms Burnham isn't a pure play drive trainer; she also utilises food rewards for some exercises, as well as a certain degree of punishment and negative reinforcement.

"Playtraining your dog" is directed towards competition obedience, instead of day-to-day manners. Obedience exercises from novice to open are covered, including sit, down, heel, stay, send outs, retrieve, and scent discrimination.

The methods and techniques presented here are fairly haphazard. One gets the impression that the author has no real understanding of learning theory or conditioning: she has merely trained her own dogs by trial-and-error, and is now sharing her results with us. The result is that the methods discussed here are all useable, but they are rarely the most sophisticated or effective methods that modern dog training has to offer. They are also relatively chaotic in presentation - there is no particular section about building drive, for example, although Ms Burnham touches on this topic several times throughout the course of the book.

Ms Burnham also uses rather a lot of punishment by today's standards, including during the teaching of several exercises - heeling, retrieving and recalls, to name a few examples. The worry with using punishment while teaching an exercise is that the dog could easily develop a resentful or fearful attitude towards either these particular exercises or towards training as a whole, as he has no idea how to avoid the corrections. To preserve a dog's willing attitude towards work, I personally feel that you are better off using modern "positive" methods to teach an exercise, relying on corrections only if necessary to proof the exercise.

This was a revolutionary book in 1980 - but dog training has come a long way since then. Ms Burnham pushes her dogs into a sit - today we can choose between this method and either luring the dog into a sit with a food treat, or capturing the sitting action with a clicker. Ms Burnham teaches attention heeling with a choke chain - it is more easily shaped off leash, with animation achieved through regular food or prey drive rewards. In short, there are better training books out there.

This book is certainly worth a read if you're interested in competition obedience - some of the suggestions are worthwhile, and the photos of the greyhounds are lovely. If you're a beginner trainer who is after a practical book to teach your dog manners or basic obedience, then give this one a miss.

When I first bought this little book I was simply impressed by the author's greyhounds. I figured anyone who had that much success with a greyhound must have something interesting to say! Little did I know I was getting a treasury of dog training information.

Play Training Your Dog has wonderful motivational techniques, fully explained. Most dogs turn into wonderful 'rag' dogs and for those who don't it's easy to turn her methods into one using food, or another toy. More valuable though than even the training information, are the chapters on having fun with your dog, showing, and anger management. The entire book is also smattered with stories making it an easy fun read.

Overall EVERYONE should have this book. It's the one I consistently go back to. And the only one that I agree with completely except for one minor item (the forced retrieve as written in the book). That aside though, the books lends itself to many situations and training methods including clicker training. It truly is a great book.

I really appreciated the insights into finding 'motivators' for independant breeds such as sighthounds and in my case, Siberian Huskies. This book is a mainstay on my dog training shelf. In addition, I recommend William Campbell's 'Behavior Training in Dogs' (at least the edition I purchased in the 70's).

One of the innovations of PLAYTRAINING YOUR DOG was the idea of using tug-of-war as both inducement and reinforcement for learning obedience skills. I think this book was actually first published in 1980 or 82, when the idea of playing tug was strictly verboten in most dog training circles. In fact, I'd venture to say that nearly all dog trainers at the time, particularly pet dog trainers, would've told you not to play it with your dog. Now here we are, 23 years later (in 2005), and I can't tell you how many of my potential clients, when I ask them during a phone consultation if they play tug with their pups, still say no, they don't because they heard it causes aggression. Or they say, yes, they do, but they were told to never let the dog win because winning will make him think he's alpha.

WRONG: tug-of-war doesn't cause aggression; it's actually a safe outlet for it. Plus, truly aggressive dogs don't even like to play tug. And the truth is, if you can finally get them to play with you, you'll find that they're much less aggressive if not over their aggression entirely! (It's kinda funny how that's just the opposite of what we've all been told, huh?) And then there's the fact that it's one of the best training tools ever invented because it stimulates a dog's desire to learn and obey to the highest possible level.

As for a dog thinking he's alpha, that's bunk. To quote ex-cop turned dog trainer Jack Field (who's the fictional narrator of my detective novels), "Dogs don't care who's alpha and who's not. Only emotionally dysfunctional owners and trainers do." (Jack's got a bit of a chip on his shoulder about this topic. . .) And if you think Jack's nuts to say that, recent studies done on wild wolf packs prove his point; certain top wolf researchers don't even like to use the word alpha anymore because, as Dr. L. David Mech puts it, "it falsely implies a hierarchical system in which each wolf assumes a place in a linear pecking order," (Canadian Journal of Zoology, 2002).

The other innovation Pat Burnham introduced was teaching a dog to jump up on command in order to increase the dog's focus on you, to increase the dog's drive to obey, and to reinforce other behaviors like the recall, the stay, and the heel. How many other training books can you think of that recommend using jumping up on command this way? (I only know of one: NATURAL DOG TRAINING, by Kevin Behan.) And remember, back in the early 80s we were told that a dog who jumped up on people was supposedly showing dominance and trying to be alpha! (Not this again...)

So if you think this book is behind the times, I'm sorry, but you've got it backwards.

Oh, and yes, Pat Burnham does make the mistake of promulgating the now-discredited alpha theory in her book. That's why I've only given it four stars. (If they had half stars, it would've been four and a half; no one was that far ahead of the times in 1982, not even Pat Burnham.)

There are plenty of books on obedience training for dogs. But what if you don't own a Border Collie or a Poodle or a German Shepherd? What if you own a basenji, or a Whippet, or a Komondor, or a Greyhound? How do you get started? Matter of fact, how do you get the dog not to bite you?

This book answers some of these questions, and tells about the way the author managed to train some of these less likely obedience candidates. The goal generally was qualification in Utility Class, which typically takes several trials. We see how Ms. Burnham managed to train several greyhounds and even a komondor (the photo of the komondor clearing the bar jump is one of the most unbelievable photographs of a dog I have ever seen).

As a basenji owner, I found this book useful and enjoyable.

The fun training techneques in this book makes training seem like playing. For instance, I tryed the stay techneque and my dog acually WANTS to stay where I told him. My old way made the dog stay but because of fear and it was not fun.Skimming the book you can stop on what interest you and have fun withyour dog right away.It is one of the best dog training books for new and old trainers.(I keep giving my copy away. That is why I at Amazon buying another.)Signed,Sas

I was frankly rather disappointed by this book. I love the writing style, and the author's anecdotes about showing her dogs are hilarious. Unfortunately, I was expecting more actual ideas for games you could play with your dog that would motivate or teach him, and there isn't much that's new in this book. Also, as a clicker trainer, I find the fact that the author claims to support learning by positive reinforcement to be mildly amusing, since she's miles away from what most of us would call by that name. (I got The Culture Clash at the same time as this book, and the difference is striking.) To sum up, I think this was a useful, cutting-edge book... for 1986.

Play training was a lifesaver for us when "traditional" training methods proved too harsh for our dog. The strength of this method is that it makes training a fun, positive experience for both dog and trainer by working with the dog's own natural instincts and enthusiasm for play. At age 12, our dog still responds to obedience commands with joy and enthusiasm (even though he hasn't been kept in active training), thanks to Burnham's methods. Definitely two thumbs up!

This is an excellent book for trainers who want to get
precise, happy work from any dog. Patricia Burnham uses
her greyhounds as illustrators, in both word and picture.
The book is especially good in its treatment of
motivation--putting the responsibility for motivation
firmly on the shoulders of the trainer.

I am relatively new to dog training, and like many have acquired loads of books hoping they will teach me the secret of achieving that title. This is one book I just continue to come back to.
Like me, the author has a non-typical obedience breed (she trains greyhounds) and she seems to understand that traditional (and boring!) techniques don't work on all dogs.

This is an older book with black and white photos and as another review said it isn't particularly well organised but it contains great advice and the commands the author teaches are still relvant in today's obedience trials. She truly gives the impression she loves her dogs, they are a huge part of her life and loves playing with them - but all this only assists in their training!

She has a great attitude to her dogs and training, especially her attitude 'it is always the trainers fault' (i.e. if the dog isn't performing perhaps the trainer has moved too fast, or the location has too many distractions etc). She also suggest ways of dealing with your anger and frustration when you are training dogs, which is something we all feel occasionally but is seldom dealt with in training books.

A great book that I would highly recommend to any trainer. One of those books you keep coming back to again and again and again...