The Power of Positive Dog Training

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Summary: Power of Positive Dog Training
Review: Pat Miller has captured the essence of treating dogs with kindness, respect and compassion. It is rare indeed to find such a wonderful mix of scientific expertise in such an accessible, easy to understand format. Rarer still is finding such a presentation rooted and supported by such love and caring.This book is proudly added to the list of books I recommend to students as well as required reading in my Teacher-Training program. I recommend it's message and methods without reservation. Great job Pat!Paul Owensauthor: The Dog Whisperer

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Summary: A Must Read For Dog Owners and Dog Professionals!
Review: Pat Miller's book is clear, concise, and entertaining. This book explains why you'll be training, how you'll be training, and what you need to train. Pat Miller addresses everthing from basic training to many of the behavior challenges that so many dog owners face; including housebreaking, seperation anxiety and how to handle dogs & kids. I highly recommend this book as an excellent resource for dog lovers and dog trainers alike.

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Summary: Clear, helpful and positive advice for all breeds
Review: Someone wrote earlier that this book was risky with certain breeds.
This book was recommended on a pit bull discussion list. I bought it shortly after adopting a stray year old pitbull who had no training of any kinds. She was not even housebroken. I hadn't had a dog in years and had never trained one. This book provided clear, positive step by step instructions that helped train both me and my dog. With the help of this book, my dog learned basic commands. In addition, the positive approach helped turn her from a nervous dog into a friendly, secure pet.
I didn't try the training methods that use more aversive consequences but I suspect that she would still be nervous if I had.
She recently passed her canine good citizen test and I give credit to this book.

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Summary: Worthy Successor to Culture Clash
Review: The cover of "The Power of Positive Dog Training" has a quote from Jean Donaldson. Makes sense to me, because this book is a wonderful successor to "Culture Clash," Donaldson's classic set of essays about the value of operant conditioning and the flaws of other training methods.

"Culture Clash" is the word-of-mouth classic that clicker-training dog people recommend most often, at least in my experience. It's a lively, engaging book, but it's basically written as a sort of argument for operant methods rather than other training approaches, not as a practical training guide. Because of that "Clash" is not well-organized for use as a how-to title. It has no index, the chapters aren't organized around typical training issues, and so on.

Well, "Power of Positive Dog Training" is the practical version. The book is organized around a six-week training regimen -- there's one chapter for each week. Pat Miller does address all the differences between operant training and, say, punishment-based approaches, but she does so largely in her introductory chapters, in a way that complements the approachable, clearly-stated training course she's describing. She doesn't seem to be attacking the methods she's describing, just laying out the advantages of positive methods to win you over. When an author describes "team you and your dog," you know her heart's in the right place, don't you?

When it comes to the training chapters, you'll love the structure of this book. Each week has some Core Exercises and some Bonus Games. They're written with a careful sense of how you're going to use them, which just works.

Take one of the core exercises from week 3 -- "Wait." First Miller explains what the behavior is and why you need it: Wait tells your dog to stay back for a moment or two, and you might use it to keep your dog from rushing out the door when you open it. Then you get simply-stated instructions for how to train the behavior: do this, do this, when the dog does that reward it in this way, and so on. At the end of this section there's a little "remember" paragraph that helps to frame the instructions in terms of the overall approach. (In this case Miller reminds us we're trying to set the dog up to succeed, not trying to lure her into making a mistake we can correct.) Then we get Training Tips, which is a sort of "usual questions" category that addresses some of the common questions or problems that come up in teaching a given behavior. ("My dog wanders off when I try to train this, what should I do?")

Simple enough, isn't it? Good technical writing has a way of seeming so simple that anyone could have written it. (Bad technical writing, well, that's like wading through the six languages in your VCR manual and never being sure which language you're in.)

The rest of this book serves to complement the training course. First you have those introductory essays. For most readers, for people who don't have a stake in punishment-based traditional methods, these six brief chapters would be a perfect introduction to positive-reinforcement training. (If you're completely convinced that the purpose of training your dog is to establish your dominance as alpha dog, well, maybe you need Jean Donaldson to needle you some.) Then you have section two, the training regimen, with six chapters for six weeks of training. Section three is built around common challenges: separation anxiety, housetraining, resource-guarding, and adjusting to children are four of the seven topics that get treated in detail.

The good organization continues into the back of the book. "Power" has five appendices with useful information like sample calendars you might use, or a list of possible treats you might not have thought of using. Finally, the index is actually useful and complete. (For some reason this is a real problem with lots of dog books; I've got a few "Which breed is right for you" books that don't even list breeds in the index, and "Culture Clash" has no index at all.)

Basically, this is the training book I've liked best so far. The writing style is candid and engaging, the structure is thoughtful and consistent, and as a book it just has the feel of a more mature work than most of its competition. I don't give too many five-star ratings, but I'll give one here.

Rating:
Summary: Worthy Successor to Culture Clash
Review: The cover of "The Power of Positive Dog Training" has a quote from Jean Donaldson. Makes sense to me, because this book is a wonderful successor to "Culture Clash," Donaldson's classic set of essays about the value of operant conditioning and the flaws of other training methods.

"Culture Clash" is the word-of-mouth classic that clicker-training dog people recommend most often, at least in my experience. It's a lively, engaging book, but it's basically written as a sort of argument for operant methods rather than other training approaches, not as a practical training guide. Because of that "Clash" is not well-organized for use as a how-to title. It has no index, the chapters aren't organized around typical training issues, and so on.

Well, "Power of Positive Dog Training" is the practical version. The book is organized around a six-week training regimen -- there's one chapter for each week. Pat Miller does address all the differences between operant training and, say, punishment-based approaches, but she does so largely in her introductory chapters, in a way that complements the approachable, clearly-stated training course she's describing. She doesn't seem to be attacking the methods she's describing, just laying out the advantages of positive methods to win you over. When an author describes "team you and your dog," you know her heart's in the right place, don't you?

When it comes to the training chapters, you'll love the structure of this book. Each week has some Core Exercises and some Bonus Games. They're written with a careful sense of how you're going to use them, which just works.

Take one of the core exercises from week 3 -- "Wait." First Miller explains what the behavior is and why you need it: Wait tells your dog to stay back for a moment or two, and you might use it to keep your dog from rushing out the door when you open it. Then you get simply-stated instructions for how to train the behavior: do this, do this, when the dog does that reward it in this way, and so on. At the end of this section there's a little "remember" paragraph that helps to frame the instructions in terms of the overall approach. (In this case Miller reminds us we're trying to set the dog up to succeed, not trying to lure her into making a mistake we can correct.) Then we get Training Tips, which is a sort of "usual questions" category that addresses some of the common questions or problems that come up in teaching a given behavior. ("My dog wanders off when I try to train this, what should I do?")

Simple enough, isn't it? Good technical writing has a way of seeming so simple that anyone could have written it. (Bad technical writing, well, that's like wading through the six languages in your VCR manual and never being sure which language you're in.)

The rest of this book serves to complement the training course. First you have those introductory essays. For most readers, for people who don't have a stake in punishment-based traditional methods, these six brief chapters would be a perfect introduction to positive-reinforcement training. (If you're completely convinced that the purpose of training your dog is to establish your dominance as alpha dog, well, maybe you need Jean Donaldson to needle you some.) Then you have section two, the training regimen, with six chapters for six weeks of training. Section three is built around common challenges: separation anxiety, housetraining, resource-guarding, and adjusting to children are four of the seven topics that get treated in detail.

The good organization continues into the back of the book. "Power" has five appendices with useful information like sample calendars you might use, or a list of possible treats you might not have thought of using. Finally, the index is actually useful and complete. (For some reason this is a real problem with lots of dog books; I've got a few "Which breed is right for you" books that don't even list breeds in the index, and "Culture Clash" has no index at all.)

Basically, this is the training book I've liked best so far. The writing style is candid and engaging, the structure is thoughtful and consistent, and as a book it just has the feel of a more mature work than most of its competition. I don't give too many five-star ratings, but I'll give one here.

Rating:
Summary: Positive training for your dog
Review: The Power of Positive Dog Training is just that -- positive. Miller is a proponent of operant conditioning and uses clicker training methods throughout the book. She does mention that you don't HAVE to use a clicker, but that it's helpful. I am following these methods with my own 4 month old puppy and it's working like a charm. Along with Culture Clash, this is a great book for beginners in dog training.

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Summary: Training Methods that Work and are Fun for You and Your Dog
Review: The Power of Positive Dog Training sounds like a book which should have been written by Tony Robbins and advertised on an info-meratial though it is a quality book.

The training methods are based on studies done by behavioral scientist B.F. Skinner. Many college level psychology classes teach this material. It stresses training through operant conditioning which in a nutshell is rewarding good behaviors thereby increasing the likelihood of them being repeated.

There are many references about these principles and training but this book is good because it is geared specifically towards training a dog and maps out a six week program for you to follow.

Even though I believe in the principles I was skeptical that my new puppy would learn the exercises in the book during a short period of time. Much to my surprise I saw results within a day or so. Included in the training plan is a number of progressively harder exercises to teach your dog for each week. A description of exercise, instructions, and training tips are included for each.

I highly recommend this book if you are interested in training a dog through the previously mentioned methods.

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Summary: Be Careful
Review: These approaches may work for some dogs, but for the difficult breeds this will not get the job done. Be Warned.

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Summary: Excellent guide to positive training
Review: This book explains the positive training philosophy very clearly, and follows that with a most practical training guide. The people who gave it very negative reviews seem to have missed the entire point of the book. Positive training doesn't mean letting your dog dominate you (that's always a recipe for disaster). Positive training means that you control your dog without hurting it, physically or emotionally. This can be head-spinning at first for traditional trainers. But it isn't dangerous; it's non-confrontational and builds a stronger, more positive relationship with your dog. And it does work in general.

My only negative is the feeling that positive training may not be so effective for problem behaviour - I would have liked to see this dealt with more extensively. We ended up resorting to some negative training to solve some specific serious problems quickly.

In general though, a great book, and I recommend it very highly.

Rating:
Summary: The Power of Positive Dog Training
Review: This book is concise, to the point and very easy to understand. While reading it I kept thinking "that's right!" because I very easily forget that my 6 month old puppy is NOT human and this book kept me centered on how my dog thinks. The advice and instructions that followed made complete sense. My puppy's no angel but after reading this book I feel I understand him alot better. That's important to me. I love my dog.