The author speaks simply and with the compassion and knowledge that comes from her years of experience with dogs and their people. This book enables people to communicate effectively with the dogs in the household, so there is mutual understanding, and "training" becomes second nature.

It is useful, informative, easily referenced, and very readable. Even if you think you know dogs, you will learn from this book, and enjoy the reading. It is not overwhelming for beginners, either.

If you have a dog, buy this book, and then be prepared to have to buy 4 more copies because you keep "lending" it to friends and family.


Great book for training your dog   August 6, 2000
 19 out of 19 found this review helpful

This book seems to be an excellent book for training your dog -- big or small. The author takes you from trying to understand your dog, to simple things you should need to train your dog, the first basic commands, moving on to harder things. At the end the author also outlines a variety of items to discipline your dog if your dog has problems of barking, chewing etc.

Not only is the book detailed, but set up in a way that you can easily read. Lists are very helpful in this book. The book also has interesting antecdotes about the author's experience with dogs which are separated out so that people who don't want to read them don't have to read them.

The content is good to help because it doesn't limit your options to one way of correcting your dog, but gives other ideas for those of us who are only a little creative. The book even talks about what games are good to play and has given me a few ideas for games for me and my dog.

My only problem with the book is the plug for a specially designed leash that the author sells. It does sound like a good leash for a dog that is kept inside most of the time. My dog is mostly outside and so the training with the special leash doesn't look that practical to me.

I think the best part of the book is the constant encouragement to the dog owners. The author tells us that training a dog depends on our attitude and does everything possible to keep our attitude to be helpful for training our dogs. One of the better dog-training books I have found.