Natural Dog Training: Working from the Dog's Point of View
Throw away your dominance theories, head halters, clickers and hot dog tid-bits. Play with your dog instead; develop and channel his prey drive and use his resultant magnetized focus on you to teach everything he needs to know about living happily and safely in a human world.
I am compelled to write this review after an incident that happened last night. Upon parking on my garage-way, I let my 9 month old Ridgeback puppy jump out of the car to follow me into the house. Well, I didn't notice a lab-mix dog running loose through my cul-de-sac in the neighbor's yard. Naturally, my dog starting running towards this dog to investigate. Normally, I am reluctant to call a dog that I am not 100% sure will obey the commmand, for fear of teaching and reinforcing disobedience. But, without thinking, I commanded, "Xena, Come!", and she turned out of a full sprint, and returned to me at top speed. I am still blown away. I have had many dogs and have never achieved this level of recall with any of them. And, we have not even started the formal recall training as outlined in this book. I have only just started teaching the basic obedience exercises, as my focus until now has simply been in developing and channeling her prey drive - the bond between myself and my puppy is deeper than with any other dog I have had in the past.
Beware of the current trend towards '100% Positive Re-inforcement, Clicker, Head Halter' training. No dog will ever break a chase to return to it's master for a piece of hot dog! The one poor review below is unfortunate, as this reviewer clearly did not take the time to really read and understand this book, and likely has not put it's principle exercises to the test on his dog. This reviewer apparently is willing to trash the book over Mr. Behan's choice of training collars. This is very unfair - there is no 'torture' advocated in "Natural Dog Training". As Kevin states in his book, 'What collar to use in training is perhaps the most controversial subject in dogdom', and he is right. Well, I don't personally advocate the use of choke collars, but I've seen them used effectively and humanely in the hands of an experienced trainer. And pinch collars are very misunderstood and maligned, solely based upon appearance. But the pinch collar is simply the most effective and humane tool there is for not only controlling (which a head halter can do) but communicating with your dog (which a head halter does not do). Take the time to watch a dog wearing a head halter - it's body language will tell you all you need to know. Dogs HATE head collars!
Be your dog's best friend and BUY THIS BOOK!
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