Summaries and Customer Reviews are supplied by Amazon.com

Average Customer Rating:

Always have an extra on hand	Customer Rating:
Once you start training by using the wisdom in this book you will want to keep an extra on hand to loan to friends. --Liz Clark

Great Book	Customer Rating:
Very interesting book. I wish I had read it before I got my puppy. It explains dog behavior and gives very specific steps for training.

Great Dogs Start Here

Customer Rating:

Based upon reviews I bought this and 101 Dog Tricks. Both are excellent and complement one another. Positive Dog Training explains the whys of positive dog training through the author's experiences. And goes into great details about the hows, including suggested weekly charts to help you plan the training for your dog. Dogs want to be good citizens in our worlds. These books show us how to help them to be so.

No more yelling

Customer Rating:

No more choke chains, no more yelling. The last time we had puppies was almost 30 years ago. The puppies were taught with choke chains, correction jerks, and loud, assertive commands. I hated it and was never very good at the training methods we were taught, but these methods were considered the only way to show a dog who is boss and get obedient behavior back then. The puppies eventually learned and behaved fairly well. They lived into their teens, and then we got our first adult shelter dog, an already well-trained dog with beautiful manners whom we loved dearly until she died too early from malignant melanoma. When we brought Jazmine home from the shelter, it was another experience altogether. She had been a stray and in the shelter system for a while. She came to one of our local shelters on a lab rescue program--she is part lab and part ??? She was around two years old, and very active, but a challenge. Fearful at first, she eventually relaxed into a bit of a wild child--very sweet but a handful. Fortunately, the shelter gives a one hour home visit from their trainer who uses positive training methods. She taught us the very basics, and we attended her classes. Jazmine has too poor an attention span to do well around other dogs, but we wanted to continue the training at home, so she recommended this book. I was so happy not to have to deal with choke chains, yelling and jerking the dog. I was amazed to see Jazmine learn things immediately, with soft, calm commands and a gentle, positive approach. The book is great. It explains the theory behind the approach so well, that I was later able to apply the principles to some of the behavioral challenges Jazmine presented. She loved to steal things, especially socks and run into the other room to chew on them. We would chase her and grab the object, and you could see the little wheels turning in her head while she decided what object would be next. Using what I learned from the book, I analyzed what reward she was getting from this behavior. I finally realized how much she loved the chase and attention. So the next time she stole an item, I totally ignored her. She came back with the object to taunt me--"lookie what I have!" she seemed to say. I ignored her. She dropped the item and went to lie down in a corner of the family room with a puzzled look on her face. We have learned to chase her only when she has her own toys, she loves that. Now, when she wants a chase, she chooses her own toys and leaves our stuff alone. I didn't have to yell, punish, or swat--all things we would have been told to do by trainers in the "old days". I enjoyed the chapters and worked through them with Jazmine. She seemed to really enjoy the training sessions as well. We used clicker training at first, but were gradually able to move away from that. Now a simple "yes" will do most of the time and we don't have to carry a pouch of treaties either. Unfortunately, there are still certain behaviors she will only do with a treat--more my fault than the method's I think. We lent the book to a neighbor who brought home a new puppy, and I'd like to get it back so I could learn more. I buy this book for friends and relatives with new puppies and they give it good feedback as well.

Great Price, Great Book	Customer Rating:
If you're training your dog, this is a good book to read; it promotes using positive reinforcements instead of scaring the animal with punishment. It works best too, that is if you like your dog to respect you and not fear you. It includes Bonus pages on Tricks with lots of instructions too.