The Power of Positive Dog Training

by Pat Miller

Book Overview

A renowned dog trainer gives you the positive training tools you need to share a lifetime of fun, companionship, and respect with your dog. Plus, you'll get: information on the importance of observing, understanding, and reacting appropriately to your dog's body language; instructions on how to phase out the use of a clicker and treats to introduce more advanced training concepts; a diary to track progress; suggestions for treats your dog will respond...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0470241845
• ISBN13: 9780470241844
• Release Date: April 2008
• Publisher: Howell Books
• Length: 288 Pages
• Weight: 0.93 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 6.0" x 8.9"

Customer Reviews

Great guide!

Great guide to work with dogs and other family members ;) Very good explanation of dogs’ behaviour and the reasons of it. And advices of its correction. No force, nor fears, just love! Strongly recommend this book!

Amazing!

100% recommend! +R has helped my fearful dog so much! He's so much more confident now.

Clear, helpful and positive advice for all breeds

Someone wrote earlier that this book was risky with certain breeds. This book was recommended on a pit bull discussion list. I bought it shortly after adopting a stray year old pitbull who had no training of any kinds. She was not even housebroken. I hadn't had a dog in years and had never trained one. This book provided clear, positive step by step instructions that helped train both me and my dog. With the help of this book, my dog learned basic commands. In addition, the positive approach helped turn her from a nervous dog into a friendly, secure pet.I didn't try the training methods that use more aversive consequences but I suspect that she would still be nervous if I had.She recently passed her canine good citizen test and I give credit to this book.

Excellent Book

This is one of the best dog training books out there (believe me I've read lots). It's clear, concise, and covers a multitude of useful things, starting with a reasonable synopsis of the fundamentals of clicker training, then taking you through a 6 week dog training course, and then addressing a number of individual concerns seperately (Housebreaking, Aggression, Socialization, etc.). If you want a fuller explanation of operant conditioning theory, or broader application, I would suggest Karen Pryor's "Don't Shoot the Dog", but Pat Miller includes a perfectly decent abbreviated explanation.My only gripe is in the Housebreaking section, where she gives a decent rundown on the theoretics of how to housebreak, but then gives a "sample" day from a theoretical family. The family in question has four adult equivalents (Mother, father, 2 teenagers), and all are actively involved in the housebreaking. This makes it pretty irrelevant (and downright depressing) for someone like me who is trying to housebreak a puppy with Mommy, no help from Daddy, and two preschoolers, who are certainly no help in training the puppy - after all we're still working on housebreaking THEM.On the other hand, this is a minor gripe, especially as I've never found a dog training book that did provide realistic housebreaking around toddlers, and the book is otherwise excellent.

Worthy Successor to Culture Clash

The cover of "The Power of Positive Dog Training" has a quote from Jean Donaldson. Makes sense to me, because this book is a wonderful successor to "Culture Clash," Donaldson's classic set of essays about the value of operant conditioning and the flaws of other training methods."Culture Clash" is the word-of-mouth classic that clicker-training dog people recommend most often, at least in my experience. It's a lively, engaging book, but it's basically written as a sort of argument for operant methods rather than other training approaches, not as a practical training guide. Because of that "Clash" is not well-organized for use as a how-to title. It has no index, the chapters aren't organized around typical training issues, and so on.Well, "Power of Positive Dog Training" is the practical version. The book is organized around a six-week training regimen -- there's one chapter for each week. Pat Miller does address all the differences between operant training and, say, punishment-based approaches, but she does so largely in her introductory chapters, in a way that complements the approachable, clearly-stated training course she's describing. She doesn't seem to be attacking the methods she's describing, just laying out the advantages of positive methods to win you over. When an author describes "team you and your dog," you know her heart's in the right place, don't you?When it comes to the training chapters, you'll love the structure of this book. Each week has some Core Exercises and some Bonus Games. They're written with a careful sense of how you're going to use them, which just works.Take one of the core exercises from week 3 -- "Wait." First Miller explains what the behavior is and why you need it: Wait tells your dog to stay back for a moment or two, and you might use it to keep your dog from rushing out the door when you open it. Then you get simply-stated instructions for how to train the behavior: do this, do this, when the dog does that reward it in this way, and so on. At the end of this section there's a little "remember" paragraph that helps to frame the instructions in terms of the overall approach. (In this case Miller reminds us we're trying to set the dog up to succeed, not trying to lure her into making a mistake we can correct.) Then we get Training Tips, which is a sort of "usual questions" category that addresses some of the common questions or problems that come up in teaching a given behavior. ("My dog wanders off when I try to train this, what should I do?")Simple enough, isn't it? Good technical writing has a way of seeming so simple that anyone could have written it. (Bad technical writing, well, that's like wading through the six languages in your VCR manual and never being sure which language you're in.)The rest of this book serves to complement the training course. First you have those introductory essays. For most readers, for people who don't have a stake in punishment-based traditional methods, these six brief chapters

Training Methods that Work and are Fun for You and Your Dog

The Power of Positive Dog Training sounds like a book which should have been written by Tony Robbins and advertised on an info-mertial though it is a quality book. The training methods are based on studies done by behavioral scientist B.F. Skinner. Many college level psychology classes teach this material. It stresses training through operant conditioning which in a nutshell is rewarding good behaviors thereby increasing the likelihood of them being repeated. There are many references about these principles and training but this book is good because it is geared specifically towards training a dog and maps out a six week program for you to follow. Even though I believe in the principles I was skeptical that my new puppy would learn the exercises in the book during a short period of time. Much to my surprise I saw results within a day or so. Included in the training plan is a number of progressively harder exercises to teach your dog for each week. A description of exercise, instructions, and training tips are included for each. I highly recommend this book if you are interested in training a dog through the previously mentioned methods.