For a very good guide to all sorts of dog training processes and dog behavior challenges, I use and recommend Clickertraining ...that link goes to the description of this terrific ebook you download immediately, wherever you are! -- Rosana

I’m just back from a couple of weeks visiting family and friends in northern California. I visited with a dog walker in San Francisco, a young couple with small kids and a patient dog, a woman who has two Cairn Terriers, and several pet-less friends (poor dears). So fortunately I wasn’t deprived of dogs. In fact, it was fun to be exposed to a variety of dogs and dog training styles.

The dog walker has an interesting life, though he does have to drive around the city collecting dogs for more time than he gets to actually walk them. A lot of the dogs he walks do come from his part of the city, but some of his favorites come from far away, so there is no way around that driving. He has taken some dog training courses with Jean Donaldson, but he says he has had to work out his own ways to get a group of dogs to be friends while running and playing on the beach. One of his main techniques for harmony among the dogs is to do careful intake interviews!

I was concerned about the rough way the kids played with their dog at another household, but the adults assured me that they had taught the dog not to nip. He didn’t while I was there, but then he spent much of the time curled up under my chair, once I had done a little Tellington Touch on his body.

My old friend with the Cairns has been trying to finish her younger one – that means, trying to get enough points, at large enough dog shows, for her dog to be a champion. She said that fewer people are showing now, due to the economy, so it is taking longer. Mostly we swapped stories about our dogs. I got some video of her trimming dog toenails, which I haven’t yet watched enough to see if it’s usable.

But of course there is no place like home, and no dogs like your own. LarryDog and Lola gave us a royal welcome when we got back, and the pet sitter reported that they had been very good and very affectionate. Not much separation anxiety this time, with someone sleeping here and spending a good bit of time here during the days too. Judging from a few spots in the yard, the dogs didn’t sleep the whole time.

I’ve come back with a dog training DVD and a book on playing with dogs. Will review both eventually.

Genetics and the Social Behavior of the Dog, a 1965 book by John Paul Scott and John Fuller, turned up recently on a list of influential dog behavior books compiled by Dogwise; I blogged about it in an article on great dog behavior books. (That link will take you to Dogwise pages about the book, where you can read the table of contents and the first page of the hundreds of pages it contains.)

I remember reading this book, fascinated, in the 1980s, just as my husband and I began a llama breeding program at the ranch we had for close to a decade. I’ve never seriously considered breeding dogs myself, but reading about the extensive relationships between behavior and genetics gave me plenty of food for thought with the llamas.

In this article, I’ll tell you more about the book, the twenty-year study that went into the book, and the huge effects that Genetics and the Social Behavior of the Dog has had on our world of dog training. I’ll start with the last topic. Read the rest of this entry

I often review books, ebooks, and DVDs — products that you can buy, such as new books coming out from Dogwise that deserve attention. Today I want to point you to an amazingly comprehensive resource that is completely free: the Dog Star Daily Online Digital Dog Training Textbook.

I’ve mentioned this website before. It features articles, videos, and more by dog trainers who are deeply involved in the positive dog training movement. It’s edited by Kelly Dunbar, wife of Ian Dunbar. You likely know his name if you’ve been around positive dog training, and if not, suffice it to say that he, dolphin trainer Karen Pryor who brought clicker training to dogs, and some others pretty much invented the field.

But I just found this “online digital dog training textbook” recently, It covers a variety of topics on its pages, with images of related videos on the side.

To give you an idea of the scope of this dog training resource, here are the chapter headings. All online, all (including the videos) at no cost. These people are dedicated to dogs.

Chapter One: BEFORE You Get Your Puppy
This chapter, adapted from Before You Get Your Puppy by Dr. Ian Dunbar, begins on such a sobering note that I am going to quote it:

Sadly, the majority of puppies fail to live long enough to enjoy their second birthday. They suffer from the terminal illness of being unwanted — failing to live up to the expectation of the Lassie–Benji–Eddie dream. Instead they develop a number of extremely common and utterly predictable behavior, training, and temperament problems and are surrendered to animal shelters to play lotto with their lives. Many people blame irresponsible ownership for this tragic situation. I would simply cite lack of know-how…. Ironically, the demise of many dogs stems from novice owners following misleading, erroneous, and in some cases downright bad advice from out-of-date training books.

I didn’t realize the numbers were so bad. Yikes. Makes it all the more important that we do what we can! Okay, more:

Chapter Two: Raising a Puppy
Like most of the chapters, this one consists of quite a few pages… I counted almost twenty. If you don’t want to read all that at the computer, you can print out the pages that interest you most. One of the best pages here, in my opinion, is one I have mentioned before: errorless housetraining.

Chapter Three: Basic Manners & Obedience
Includes an interesting article on using food as a reward for training, answering those who attack this method: “Any criticism of using food as a training tool may actually be applied to the use of any training tool, including leash-corrections and praise.”

Chapter Four: Adolescent Dog Training
Covering 18 weeks to 2 years, explains why it’s important to walk your dog every day. This age range can be one where owners despair of solving training problems. Don’t despair, read!

Chapter Five: Adult Dog Training
Some of these articles are also excellent for adolescent dogs. Something that got my attention was the concept of all or none reward training.

Chapter Six: Dog Behavior Problems
Something for everybody here, with topics like

• Housesoiling
• Destructive Chewing
• Excessive Barking
• Digging
• Separation Anxiety
• Fearfulness
• Fighting
• Hyperdog!
• Pulling on Leash

Chapter Seven: Dog Behavior & Play
Includes a topic titled “The Alpha Fallacy,” as well as dog play and communication.

There’s a bit more, but this should get you started! And your dogs will thank you.

It’s easy to think of dog training as a one-way street. You teach the dog that certain words and perhaps certain hand signals mean that the dog is supposed to do a particular action. This can seem cut and dried, right?

But it doesn’t exactly work that way. The dogs are training us, too. We many not notice it much, but it’s still going on. For example:

This morning I got up shortly before dawn, not my everyday habit but not too rare either. I slipped out at first light and did my stretching exercises and some brisk walking in our large yard. A bit later, my husband Kelly got up and let the dogs out.

I was just beginning my Chi Gong routine when our young Rottweiler Lola came over to me, bumped into my legs, and looked up at me. Oh yeah, I hadn’t fed them yet. She and I happened to be in the part of the sunroom where she gets fed.

"Just a little while, hon," I said to her. Normally I feed the pets before doing my exercise routine but since I was approaching the end of my exercises, I figured I’d finish them.

Lola looked at me again. Then she sat.

She gazed into my eyes eagerly as she sat. The communication could not have been clearer. I always ask her to sit before setting her food bowl down. Now here she was sitting… how about that food bowl?

"I get your message," I said. "It won’t be long." I figured my Chi Gong would be another ten minutes or so.

The dog kept looking at me expectantly. At least, she didn’t drool, as she sometimes does when her dish is on the floor and I haven’t released her yet from the sit.

Oh, that eagerness! Oh, that clear communication!

"All right," I said. "I’ll do it now." She bounded up and went straight into the kitchen, the better to watch me prepare the food.

Who was doing the training this morning?

If you have a story of your dog training you, please share it in the comments.