Customer Reviews

Training the Hard to Train Dog

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My elderly parents have a little Maltese they call "Puppy". Puppy rules their home with velvet paws; she's so good at manipulation that my folks don't even know she's controlling them. They don't know she is the definition of a stubborn, hard to train dog. They tried to explain to her that she should go outside to potty, but she's too busy to care! Puppy is their baby since we kids moved out. They would no more think about disciplining Puppy than they would think about praising me! Obviously, their bringing up baby methods vary from their dog rearing methods. (I'm NOT BITTER!!!)

After they acquired a copy of this book the examples in it made clear to them they had to do a little Puppy training to make a better life for all of them. No spanking or bad will was involved so now Puppy is happy, but better yet there are no more frantic calls from mom about little brown deposits on the carpet. The book is positive and clear with several different ways to accomplish a training task. It is a good book for the average dog owner.

This book has helped us a lot. We adopted a super sensitive dog occassionally attacked our older dog. We had trainers come and help a bit, but it was this book that made the biggest difference. Being a super sensitive dog, some of the trainers basic technics were just to harsh even though we never used anything negative. She learned to trust us and look to us for direction. I highly recommend this book for a dog, not just for problem dogs. It is so easy to read and so easy to interpret the lessons into action. Lessons are short and effective.

I learned a lot reading this book. I'm not a professional dog trainer, but Swager's explanations of what various dogs are looking as far as leadership goes, and how this relates to behavior problems is very helpful. This book made the most sense to me as to how to best approach training, and how to have the best relationship with your dog. Great book!

This book is probably one of the better training books available through book retailers like Amazon and Barnes & Noble, but it isn't, by any means, a great source of scientific information.

I've been training dogs and doing behavior consults for nearly 10 years, working predominantly with aggressive and reactive/fearful dogs using positive reinforcement. I'm constantly looking for new information about learning theory, training styles, and dogs in general. I didn't find any here.

Generally speaking, the author does a good job of briefly outlining the differences (and minor similarities) between domestic dogs and their wild wolf cousins, but some of the facts are quite off. While it's nice to see that she's on the right track in terms of the dominance theory and how it applies to dogs, this book is still light years away from what science has actually discovered about canis familiaris in this area.

The redeeming quality of this book is that the author continually advises against harsh or aversive training techniques, and states that "alpha" dogs can be trained using positive, non-punitive methods; that having an "alpha" dog can't - and shouldn't - be used as an excuse to use punitive or aversive methods. She also states clearly that certain behavior problems can - and typically are - directly related to a dog's breed, which is partially true.

While the author's methods are relatively positive, they aren't really in-depth enough for dogs with the serious behavior problems she claims they'll fix, and she blames too much on on breed (like "stubbornness") when, in reality, it's just a question of how motivated a dog is to perform.

For shy or fearful dogs, or dogs with aggression problems, save your money for a trainer, not a book (or at least not this one.)

I thought this was an excellent explanation of how to train a shy dog using non-threatening techniques. I would definitely recommend it for the way she sets out, sequentially, how to develop a "civilized" pet.