Retriever Pups: The Formative First Year (Master Training Series)

Rating:
Summary: BEWARE BUYERS
Review: Beware Lab owners or soon to be owners. If you are looking for the standard or even detailed book on training your Lab puppy, this is not the place to start. Although very creatively written and full of information (it seems), this book is not intended for the home domesticated pet you wish to train, but rather for the all outdoor hunting gun dog puppy you hope to train. This is fine and I'm sure por the purpose of making you Lab a wilderness soldier it leads you in the right direction, but had that been stated clearyly in the book discription I would of skipped it and saved myself the trouble of dissapointment and of returning a product. Precisely because I am looking for books on how to train my puppy who will live in a suburban town with a big yard, but not in middle America on a farm. So for my purposes of buying the book I feel I was misinformed so I gave it a 2 and had no interest in even reading beyond the first five pages, but if what you're looking for is "The Formative First Years (in hunting/gun dogs)" than you are in the right place. Good or bad? I guess you can give it a read and see if your puppy adapts, at least you'll be buying what you're looking for.

Rating:
Summary: Here is what I think
Review: I am getting my new lab in a couple of weeks and I am new to this breed and retrieving. I was looking for a book to tell me detailed instructions on Lab training and retrieving. This book has a lot of information and is enjoyable to read. I read it in one day. I would have liked to of had more detailed successful step by step instruction, but I found that the author knows so much that he forgets that the new guy (me) doesn't and therefore he assumes to much. Eventhough it has a lot of information and great tricks I don't feel that I have enough information so that I could train a dog to retreive.

Rating:
Summary: Training with hand signals
Review: I bought this book in anticipating that it would inform me on what was the standard hand signals used for training pups to sit, stay, come, etc.. as it stated on the back cover of the book. After reading the whole book, I asked myself where did I read about the hand signals? I then went to the back index to check if I missed it, to my dismay, it referenced one page that had one sentence on arm waving.. and that's all. If the author had given as much discussion and illustrations on knot tying as he did on hand signals I might have thought the book had some merit. Overall the book was written choppy, and disjointed and I disliked the writer's style of first person, informal.
A would suggest you to forget this book and look into buying the book "Training Your Retriever" by James Lamb Free.

Rating:
Summary: Training with hand signals
Review: I bought this book in anticipating that it would inform me on what was the standard hand signals used for training pups to sit, stay, come, etc.. as it stated on the back cover of the book. After reading the whole book, I asked myself where did I read about the hand signals? I then went to the back index to check if I missed it, to my dismay, it referenced one page that had one sentence on arm waving.. and that's all. If the author had given as much discussion and illustrations on knot tying as he did on hand signals I might have thought the book had some merit. Overall the book was written choppy, and disjointed and I disliked the writer's style of first person, informal.
A would suggest you to forget this book and look into buying the book "Training Your Retriever" by James Lamb Free.

Rating:
Summary: Mis-information
Review: I picked this book up and flipped open to a page where the author discusses health problems in retrievers. He compares the relatively healthy Flat-Coated Retriever to the Labrador, which has more health problems, and states correctly that the Labs have been bred with less care and attention to health concerns. HOWEVER, he states that the Labs and Flat-Coats are essentially the same dog except for the length of coat. This is absolutely not true. Although they originated similarly, both have been bred separately with the introduction of diverse breeds into their backgrounds. If the author has not bothered to research this, and makes incorrect statements based on his lack of research, how can I trust any information contained in the book?

Rating:
Summary: A MUST for a Happy Pup and Owner
Review: This book covers very important information for the early teaching and training of the new pup and its new owner. It will build a relation with the pup that will accept training for the rest of its life. I wish that every one getting a new pup could have a copy of this book.

Mr. Tarrant had a special relation with dogs, his humane teaching and training makes any of his books a must for the serious retriever owner.