Unleashed: How to Bring Out the Best in Your Dog

Tessa is our seventh dog, fifth Shiba Inu, and fourth rescue dog. After her owner died she spent three months in a shelter before we adopted her. She was well leash trained and came when called, but suffered from her months in two shelters. We needed to help her with anxiety. We hired a trainer.

Tessa’s problems were very specific. She needed medication to control urine leakage, a common problem with female dogs spade young. And we had to address her fear of hands and being touched. First, we taught her to take treats from our hands.

Our trainer was $250 for a session. Not everyone can afford that. So I was glad to read a book by a professional trainer to compare her advice to what we have learned with our dogs.

Unleashed begins by show more breaking a lot of bad myths around dog training. Dogs are not wolves. They don’t live in packs with an alpha leader. Punishment in training does not lead to success or a healthy pet.

Next, Goodrich offers a succinct course in understanding dog’s brains and how to interpret their behavior. I was surprised to learn that our grandpuppy’s leg raise when being pet didn’t mean ‘stroke my belly’ but was because of her shyness.

It is important to identify triggers that upset your dog. On leash, Tessa reacts to aggressive, barking dogs and is curious about baby carriages, stopping to watch them pass by. Then we need to understand what drives our pet. Tessa loves her squeaky ball and treats. Knowing your dog’s motivation mean you can use it to encourage the behavior you want.

All the fundamental training issues are covered, as well as specific problems. Illustrations, lists, and flow charts are immensely helpful. I learned a new way to hold a leash.

There is so much information in this book! I will enjoy returning to it and trying specific training techniques.

Thanks to Simon & Schuster for a free book. show less

I just finished "Unleashed: How to Bring out the Best in your Dog". For the novice dog owner I think it is a really great book to have and read. In addition to training skills, the author spends quite a bit of time on topics of biology of the dog and also behavior skills. From my experience, many breeds are very easily trainable by the novice but many behaviors are learned by the seat of our pants unless we have good coaching available. This book provides such coaching, especially when confronted with such behaviors as aggression and arousal. I definitely give the book a five star rating.

"Unleashed" by Jaime Goodrich is an excellent book to purchase to better understand how to train and raise your dog. I felt like I was having a well-thought-out conversation with the author. He explained everything about raising and living with a dog in detail and yet reading the book just breezed by without my feeling bored.
He explains how important it is to know if your dog has experienced any trauma. He explains family skills as well as foundation skills. Clearly, the author is well-respected dog trainer. I learned many things to do and even more things not to do! I encourage anyone that has a young dog to let Jaime take the lead and help you raise your I urge dog.