68 of 72 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Part memoir, part training guide, all for love and life with dogs, August 10, 2010
[This review is based on an Advanced Reading Copy]
"Through A Dog's Eyes" is an insightful, humane and knowledgable journey through the mindset of man's best friend. The author, Jennifer Arnold is the founder of Canine Assistants, a service dog school based in Milton, Georgia. At Canine Assistants Jennifer and her team rescue, rehabilitate and train dogs to become service dogs providing aid for children and adults who have physical disabilities, epilepsy and other special needs. Spending her entire life with dogs the author clearly has a compassion for them that transcends all boundaries of emotion. Although sometimes her feelings border on odd there's no denying her passion for animals, especially those within her care. Here are my feelings on this thought provoking book;
Pros
+ Empathetic and passionate view on how to train, teach and understand your dog.
+ Author clearly outlines and explains the basic behaviors, senses and emotions of dogs in an easily understandable and common sense way.
+ Believes the popular dominant/alpha male role of the owner is incorrect. Arnold explains that trust and positive reinforcement through training should be the foundation of the relationship between owner and dog, not fear and submission. She further explains that the alpha male role should be reserved for wild animals (wolves) and not domesticated dogs and their human partners.
+ Speaks out against the use of physically and emotionally harmful training devices such as shock, choke, citronella collars and invisible fences.
+ Quick and informative read with its heart in the right place.
+ Great cover art
Cons
- Author's message can sometimes come across as condescending and overly emotional. This commonly happens when someone is as compassionate about something as Arnold is for dogs. This is especially evident if someone doesn't understand or see her exact point of view.
- Not everyone will feel or comprehend the author's instense bond with dogs and could perceive it as "strange."
- Can read like a research paper at times.
- Can be confusing differentiating between the names of the dogs and their owners as the dog was mentioned much more frequently.
- Too short considering the cover price.
"Through A Dog's Eyes" educates and inspires owners to train their dog appropriately. With 20 years of dog training experience, she shares her stories of canine sensitivity and body/vocal language comprehension. She offers numerous but brief examples of canine intelligence and heroism in efforts to aid their human partners. Arnold emphasizes choice-based, positive-reinforcement-only teaching methods and shares valuable insights that every dog owner should know. Arnold is extremely outspoken regarding the "alpha male - dominance" training/belief taught by many trainers today. While she never says, "I'm talking about you Cesar Millan" you could easily draw the comparison. Arnold balances dog science and observation admirably while elevating our respect and basic understanding of our canine companions to a new level. She gets a thumbs and paws up from me and my dog.
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22 of 27 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Finally, an author who truly understands dogs!!, August 10, 2010
This is the dog book I have been waiting for!!! For years we've been taught we have to dominate and control our dogs and I never understood why. Finally we have an author who has years of experience working with and researching dogs who tells us we don't have to! Arnold takes us on an emotional journey and helps us understand that dogs do indeed have emotions and deserve the proper treatment and respect. She doesn't just tell us that this is the way to work with a dog but explains WHY it should be done and how important it is. It feels like such a relief to have someone with such a wealth of knowledge instruct dog lovers on how it is very worth it to learn how to communicate effectively with our canine friends. Finally someone who is giving dogs the respect they deserve!!!!!! Dog's around the world are breathing a sigh of relief that "Through a Dog's Eyes" was written for them!
Arnold's book is very well written and is an interesting and emotional read. Her passion for not only dogs but for helping others touches the heart. And who can resist the pictures of such sweet and loving dogs.
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10 of 12 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
philosophy of compassion, December 23, 2010
This review is from: Through a Dog's Eyes (Kindle Edition)
The author specializes in training service dogs for disabled people so she's looking for a specific personality type: interested in humans, submissive, docile. Although I'm not a dog expert, I suspect some of her advice might not apply or may actually be erroneous if you're looking for a dog that is not like the dog she is describing, such as a guard dog or an aggressive active dog, or if you're dealing with a dog that is by nature aloof or dominating with most humans. Although she makes an effort to be scientific, I'd categorize some of her science as pseudoscience and I think actually her main value add here is not her advice or information but the general compassionate attitude she brings.
I would recommend this book to people who want to read heroic stories about service dogs. I do not think this book is particularly informative or helpful in training most dogs. She does not describe very many actual training techniques but mainly emphasizes the perspective of compassion in general as opposed to methods that come from physical dominance of dogs. She seemed to possess a lot of intelligence in terms of being able to understand what the dog is thinking or feeling. I do not feel qualified to remark on whether her criticism of physical dominance is accurate or not but her emotions seemed reasonable and right and were the strongest point of her book.
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