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

Dee Ganley’s Changing People, Changing Dogs: Positive Solutions for Difficult Dogs was a self-published book that Dogwise has just brought out in a new edition. Many trainers use it, particularly since it contains many clearly explained exercises that help difficult dogs.

What’s a difficult dog? I suppose it’s any dog that someone gets exasperated with, but generally the term includes dogs who don’t learn as well because they lack normal control of their actions, or because their self-confidence is diminished.

This revised edition has new exercises and photos. It’s crammed with easy-to-read and easy-to-implement strategies, techniques, exercises and games, Dee walks the reader through over fifty methods of addressing canine fear and aggression. The simple and effective exercises will have you and your dog(or your clients and their dogs) well on the way to a happy relationship. Strictly positive methods!

This book covers a lot of ground, with sections on:

• Training equipment
• Toys and chews for environmental enrichment and play
• Canine communication
• How dogs learn
• How to assess a dog for training and behavior work
• A few case studies.

What Others are Saying 

“A good third of the book is an appendix giving step by step, detailed and clearly explained instructions for numerous exercises. Two of the self-control exercises that I use with clients almost daily are the Settle: Relaxed Down on Lead, and the Find It Game”. – Carolyn Clark, M. A. Director of Centre for Applied Canine Behavior

Having had more than one difficult dog myself, I was pleased to see this emphasis. Click on the image to go to Dogwise. I looked at Amazon, but when I was there, they only had the older self-published version so I didn’t bother making a link. (By the way, if you have that one, Dogwise says this one isn’t different enough to warrant buying their version.)

Good Dog! Kids Teach Kids About Dog Behavior and Training is, as you’d expect from the title, a book written by kids. Evelyn Pang and Hilary Louie began writing this book when they were 9 years old, and Dogwise published it when they were 14.

The book is written for kids to read themselves, so it had to be clear and simple. (Hey, that is best for grownups too, and I’m sure this would be good for adults as well.) It is… I read some of it online, as you can do if you click the image or the link. I was pleased that clicker training is taught.

Dogwise Publishing commented, “We’ve believed for a long time that someone needed to write a book about dog behavior and training targeted towards young readers in the 8-12 year old range. There are lots of “read-to” books for little kids, but as children become good readers and interested in actually understanding and training dogs there has been little to choose from. So we were ecstatic when we were presented with the opportunity to work with two amazing young women on this book – not only did they write the book, but they illustrated it as well!”

The premise of the book is that when kids teach kids about dogs, everybody has fun! Kids will learn how to watch a dog and figure out what he is feeling or doing by gaining an understanding of body language and calming signal basics.

And they can learn how to teach him cool things like “Sit,” “Come,” and “Stay” just like professional trainers do – and even learn how to use clickers and targets when they train!

And, perhaps most importantly, kids can learn how to be safer around dogs they may come in contact with.

So if you are not a kid, but know a kid who is showing an interest in dogs, check this book out and get him or her started off right working with dogs.

What Others Are Saying

“This book, created by kids who clicker train, tells other kids how to use clickers to understand and communicate with their pets: a great idea and a useful and amusing book, with illustrations by the authors.” — Karen Pryor, founder of clicker training

“We know that kids learn best from their peers—so it is surprising that it has taken so long to get a dog training book written by kids for kids. Good Dog! Kids Teach Kids About Dog Behavior and Training covers the real essentials of being responsible and effective in caring for and training dogs. The emphasis is on safety and empathy—two things often overlooked in the profusion of books by adults. A must-read for any child or teen starting out with a new dog, or trying to better understand a longtime companion.”
-Randall Lockwood, PhD, CAAB, author and Senior Vice President, ASPCA, American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals

Where You Can Get This Book

book is available at Dogwise, who published it. Good Dog! Kids Teach Kids About Dog Behavior and Training

And here it is at Amazon:

Dogwise, an online bookstore and publisher, is a sort of Amazon for dogs. With their fingers on the pulse of what dog books people are buying, they are in a good position to predict trends. But several books surprised them in 2008 by selling well. Here is their list of four surprises. Since a Basenji owned us for her ten years of life, I love the cover of the first book.

By the way, here’s something that was no surprise to them: their dog breed calendars for 2009 are in and are the hottest items! In fact, they suggest you order sooner rather than later as they aren’t sure they will be able to get all of them closer to Christmas.

Through a Dog’s Ear by Joshua Leeds and Susan Wagner. Using sound to improve the health and behavior of your dog, The book includes a CD, and two separate CDs can be purchased as well.

You know that your dog’s hearing is very sensitive, but did you know that you could create an environment of sound to improve the health and well being of your canine companion? Now, psychoacoustic expert Joshua Leeds and veterinary neurologist Susan Wagner show you how with Through a Dog’s Ear. Using the latest science on how dogs hear and react to sound, Leeds and Wagner bring you a treasury of practical tools for enhancing the lives of our best friends—including a CD of music demonstrated in clinical trials to calm 70 percent of dogs in kennels and 85 percent in households. Join these two innovators for fresh insights on the inner auditory life of your dog, featuring:
• How to use sound as a tool to help alleviate separation anxiety, excitement with visitors, thunderstorm panic, and other behavior challenges • For nervous dogs: tips and tricks for making any house or apartment more comfortable for canines • Keys to understanding how our dogs hear the human world—including orienting responses, sensory confusion, and over– and under–stimulation • Accompanying CD includes 45 minutes of classical music psychoacoustically designed to soothe and calm dogs—and their human companions.

  Pet Food Politics by Marion Nestle. The inside story on the pet food industry and what you need to watch for as a consumer.

Marion Nestle, acclaimed author of “Food Politics, “now tells the gripping story of how, in early 2007, a few telephone calls about sick cats set off the largest recall of consumer products in U.S. history and an international crisis over the safety of imported goods ranging from food to toothpaste, tires, and toys. Nestle follows the trail of tainted pet food ingredients back to their source in China and along the supply chain to their introduction into feed for pigs, chickens, and fish in the United States, Canada, and other countries throughout the world. What begins as a problem “merely” for cats and dogs soon becomes an issue of tremendous concern to everyone. Nestle uncovers unexpected connections among the food supplies for pets, farm animals, and people and identifies glaring gaps in the global oversight of food safety.

“Pet Food Politics” is a first class example of investigative journalism exposing one of the challenges of globalization of our food supply. It’s required reading for anyone who wants to understand the implications of globalization and the importance of quality control in all our food.”–Allen M. Schoen, MS, DVM, author of “Kindred Spirits: How the Remarkable Bond Between Humans and Animals Can Change the Way We Live”

The Dog Aggression Workbook by James O’Heare. This Workbook is an interactive guide for guardians of dogs who behave aggressively. The workbook presents a systematic and highly efficient and effective, positive reinforcement-based approach to understanding, assessing and changing aggressive behaviors in dogs.

Strategies and techniques are described clearly and completely in a conversational style that is easy to read and understand. Guardians will be armed with the tools they need to address all kinds of aggressive behavior problems, while avoiding harsh punitive techniques. The workbook utilizes a behavioral approach, focusing on identifying specific problem behaviors, what evokes them and what consequences are maintaining them. It explains how to implement desensitization and behavior replacement procedures to change emotional responses and the aggressive behaviors they motivate. Taking a global and comprehensive approach, it addresses the whole context in which aggressive behaviors are performed.

The Dog Aggression Workbook will be a useful compliment for Aggressive Behavior in Dogs, a manual written for professional behavior consultants as a means of increasing the efficiency and effectiveness of professional consultation. Short and inexpensive, it would make a useful adjunct to consultation.

101 Dog Tricks by Kyra Sundance. There are lots of books out there on tricks, but the great photos and clear step-by-step instructions has really set this book apart.

“101 Dog Tricks” is the largest trick book on the market and the only one presenting full-color photos of each trick and its training steps. The step-by-step approach, difficulty rating, and prerequisites, allow readers to start training immediately.

Tips, and trouble-shooting boxes cover common problems, while “build-on” ideas suggest more complicated tricks which build on each new skill.

No special tools (such as clickers) or knowledge of specific training methods are required. Featuring step-by-step photos of every trick in the book.
Trick training is a great way to bond with your dog and help him integrate into your family. It keeps him mentally and physically challenged and helps to establish paths of communication between you.

Many tricks build skills needed for common dog sports, dog dancing, and dog therapy work.

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