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

You may hear a lot about dogs’ dominance these days, depending on what television shows you favor. I’ve been working up to doing an article on dominance and how badly the concept is misused generally. Luckily, two top websites beat me to it so I will just link to them today.

The Association of Pet Dog Trainers is an organization of dog training professionals who advocate and use positive, pain-free methods. I am a member, and you can see their logo and my blurb about the organization at the bottom of every page of this blog. The renowned Dr. Ian Dunbar started this organization some years ago

Well, the APDT has recently issued a position statement about dominance and dog training.  I just went looking for a sentence or two to quote here but really the whole thing is so good that I suggest you go read that wolf are not organized according to dominance, that dogs are not wolves anyway, and much more.

And here is another really interesting article, a blog post with quite a few comments from readers as well: How Dominance Can Make You Dumb.

Happy reading! I welcome comments here, and will approve ones that don’t agree with me only if they are well written and don’t use namecalling. I’ve gotten some of those before, when I blogged about CM. But since I didn’t use his name here, I should stay under the radar of his more rabid fans.  Do I disagree with him completely? No. But significantly. Oops, starting a rant… do read those articles!

May all dogs be lovingly trained!

I am a big fan of the writing of Marta Williams. I’ve read her first book several times. So I was delighted to get an email from Carol Upton with this review of a new book by Marta Williams.  — Rosana

Ask Your Animal: Resolving Behavioral Issues Through Intuitive Communication

By Marta Williams, Foreword by Vanessa Williams, New World Library, 2008, Soft Cover, $14.95, ISBN: 978-1-57731-609-1, Available at www.martawilliams.com

Reviewed by Carol M. Upton

Like almost everyone else in the world. I started out believing that being able to communicate intuitively with animals was pure science fiction. ~ Marta Williams

Around the world, people are starting to see how communication with other species enhances all life. Whether you want to enrich your relationship with one pet or plan serious study of animal communication, Ask Your Animal will deeply inspire your direction.

Prior to becoming an animal communicator, Marta Williams worked as a wildlife biologist and environmental scientist. Intrigued by the idea of intuitive communication with animals, she set out to learn all that she could about the subject, a path which led her to become a full-time animal communicator. Read the rest of this entry

The folks from Dogwise go to the annual APDT (Association of Pet Dog Trainers) conferences, and after the one this year, they reported that there is an ongoing demand for good books on dog clicker training, at the beginning level.

Here are three top picks of theirs. I’m sure any of these would take you well beyond what I cover in  my free ebook on dog clicker training.

Clicking on any of the book covers below will take you to the pages at Dogwise, where you can learn more about each book.

Read the rest of this entry