Dog Training Recommended Reading

Canine Body Language is an exhaustive photographic documentation of dogs in their day-to-day activities: dogs alone, dogs together, dogs in the water, dogs having fun, dogs that are stressed and dogs in relation to human beings. In addition to the incredible photographs, author Brenda Aloff gives the reader detailed descriptions of what is happening in each photograph so that you can build your canine vocabulary.

Do you want a dog who will come to you the first time—every time? That’s what you’ll get when you follow the easy, fun, and effective training steps in The Original Rocket Recall™ (with a foreword by Steve White, working dog consultant, and retired police K9 trainer/supervisor).  This easy-to-follow book lets you say goodbye to the embarrassment of calling your dog and getting no response, and hello to recall training that’s fun and effective for you and your dog.

Family Friendly Dog Training will have your dog listening to you in no time! Let Patricia McConnell’s years of experience and expertise show you how to make training fun, fast and easy. This user-friendly book is used all over the country by progressive trainers and shelters—it’s helped over 40,000 dogs and their owners with positive and effective methods that make training a pleasure.

In her third book, Control Unleashed: Reactive to Relaxed, Leslie McDevitt discusses her exciting new additions to the Control Unleashed® training program, as well as new perspectives and revisions of the foundation behaviors and core games. The new concepts and techniques will support you in teaching your dog life skills and coping skills so that he is comfortable in the world, building relationships, empowering your dog, and creating a two-way system of communication between you and your dog.

This thoroughly comprehensive book provides detailed insight on how stress affects the health and well-being of our dogs at all stages of development. By analyzing how stress is connected to problem behaviors, such as aggression and reactivity, Dr. Spaulding is able to offer solutions to dog owners, trainers, veterinarians, and shelter staff who desire to reduce stress and increase resiliency in dogs.

Over the past two decades, countless dog trainers across the world have embraced the liberal use of positive reinforcement. Often accompanying this trend, however, is an underlying emphasis, inherited from more coercive models of dog training, that each human in the family must be the dog’s leader. But adopting the role of leader using what is known as the “Nothing in Life is Free” training protocol can result in stifling rules that constrain a person’s ability to share affection and attention with their dogs.

Explore the world of canine nutrition and learn about feeding your dog with science, sense and sensibility. Canine nutrition is easily one of the most debated topics in the dog world. Canine Nutrition: Food, Feeding and Function aims to help canine caregivers navigate the world of dog food and feeding, and is an essential guide for anyone who lives with dogs and wants to understand more.

Almost every dog has some degree of prey drive it’s in his genes some more than others. You may experience it when your otherwise well mannered dog suddenly takes off chasing after a rabbit, squirrel, or a jogger. The old approach to solving this problem involved the use of corrective devices like choke chains and electronic fences. A better approach includes training and management techniques that reward your dog for choosing to focus on and stay near you, the owner.

It’s fun teaching your dog to perform tricks – but did you know there are games you can play that have a far greater value?
In Canine Cognitive Skills, author Kay Attwood, a leading trainer and behaviourist, has devised series of games that not only develop your dog’s brain power, but also help him to live in the world as a well-rounded individual.

Engaging, humorous and user-friendly, The Puppy Primer describes a six-week program to get you and your puppy off on the right paw. Designed for puppies under five months of age (see Family Friendly Dog Training for older dogs), you’ll learn how to create the foundation your pup needs to become a well-adjusted and well-behaved member of the family.

Yawning, lip-licking, sneezing, even scratching are just a few of the 30-plus signals that dogs use to communicate with one another. With On Talking Terms With Dogs you can learn to recognize these signals and use them yourself to interact with your dog.

You are a dedicated pet owner who has put considerable time and energy into training your dog. As a result, your dog has a reliable set of behaviors such as sit, down, stay and a recall – under pristine conditions. But now you’re stumped; you’re unsure how to get those behaviors away from home and off leash – in short; when you really need cooperation!

In the world of dogs, there is now more awareness than ever of the need to provide enrichment, especially in shelters. But what exactly is enrichment? The concept is pretty straightforward: learn what your dog’s needs are, and then structure an environment and routine that allows them to engage in behaviors they find enriching.

In her groundbreaking approach to improving behavior, behavioral biologist Karen Pryor says, “Whatever the task, whether keeping a four-year-old quiet in public, housebreaking a puppy, coaching a team, or memorizing a poem, it will go fast, and better, and be more fun, if you know how to use reinforcement.”

This is essentially an introduction to clicker training (a positive reinforcement training system based on operant conditioning, a set of scientific principles describing the development of behavior in which the animal operates on the environment, instead of the other way around).