Jean Donaldson

I read a few books on dog care and training before I adopted a 2-year-old Shih Tzu two years ago. I hadn't had a dog since elementary school so my experience was rusty. This book's explanation of dog motivation and behavior makes more sense to me, and confirms things that I've observed while living with a dog for the last two years. Dogs learn behavior through classical and operant conditioning. This happens - in both directions - whether or not the human owners are aware of it. Trainers can show more use these learning principles to encourage desired behavior and discourage unwanted behavior.

I had instinctively been conditioning my dog to do things in certain places or at certain times (for example, crate training) by offering positive reinforcement. Donaldson's book provides explanations and describes techniques that will help me to improve my still fairly raw skills. Now that I've read the book, I think it would help to see the training techniques in action, so I've ordered one of her DVDs.

The book is essentially self-published by Donaldson's Academy for Dog Trainers. The valuable content is worthy of professional editing and design to eliminate repetitiveness and make it more visually appealing. show less

A slow and very thorough, one step at a time, introduction to dog training with rewards and without punishment. The dvd (normally included) was missing out of this library copy, but the book did a fine job without it in conveying the essentials of dog training.. My only criticism is that due to the breaking down of every small step, I wonder how many people will stick with this type of training, but will instead want quicker results and a quicker read. By the way, I didn't have any dogs to show more practice on (mine are all older), so my review is somewhat theoretical although I have done dog training in the past. show less

Very good. A little different than what i was expecting (a training theory book) - but definitely worth the read. Very interesting to see the points of research... And especially the paradigm changing possibility that there is no such thing as dominance as a motivator of dog behavior

frequently technical, would be off-putting for someone who isn't already mostly convinced that dominance is n't the way to go (calls it "stupid", etc, in a dismissive way, though later talks about why). BUT for someone who is already familiar with some positive training concepts and is mostly on board, GREAT.