Dogwise.com is a terrific dog bookstore and publisher, firmly in the camp of cutting-edge positive dog training methods. Like all businesses, they are noticing the economy. Here is part of an email that I got from them a few days ago:

Like a lot of businesses throughout the country, the current recession has impacted us as well. For Dogwise, cutting edge training and dog care books and DVDs continue to be in hot demand (thank goodness and thank you!).

What we have seen, however, is that certain items – which in a strong economy we would expect to sell at a good pace – have slowed down significantly. Books that keep sitting on our shelves don’t do us a lot of good, even if we think highly of them.

As booksellers we have two choices, one being to return them and the other is to offer to them to you at a steep discount.

We have chosen the latter, and if you head to our clearance section (there is a tab on the top of our home page) you will see that we reduced prices on clearance items dramatically, most are now selling for well under 50% of their suggested price. So take advantage! All clearance items are first come first served and will not be reordered.

Read the rest of this entry

For the Love of a Dog (Amazon link), by Patricia McConnell, is the best dog book I have read in a long time.

The subtitle is “Understanding Emotion in You and Your Best Friend.” McConnell writes with emotion herself, and some of my favorite parts of the book were stories of her dogs and her small sheep ranch. She is also a scientist, complete with a Ph.D. in zoology. Add to that over seventeen years of working with clients and their dogs, specializing in aggressive dogs, and there is a lot to learn from this book.

I expect to be blogging about ideas I got from the book, and re-reading my marked-up copy regularly, but now here’s a summary of what’s in For the Love of a Dog: Read the rest of this entry

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: