The “Woof-Meow” show is on every Sunday at 8:30PM on WVOM, 103.9FM, the Voice of Maine. Hosted by Don Hanson of Green Acres Kennel Shop, the show focuses on educating dog and cat guardians about their dogs and cats.

AIR DATE: Sunday, July 30, 2006

GUEST: Don Hanson & Mike Dow

Recommended Dog Training & Behavior Books

Great books that will teach you more about your dog!

Book Review - The Power of Positive Dog Training, by Pat Miller

SUGGESTED AUDIENCE: Anyone with a dog or thinking about getting a dog.

In The Power of Positive Dog Training, Pat Miller discusses the advantages of training with positive reinforcement and the pitfalls of training with punishment. The book outlines a 6-week program for training your dog or puppy to be the wonderful companion that you want. In her book, Pat also addresses behavioral challenges such as housetraining, chewing, digging, resource guarding, and more. Her suggestions are not only practical, they are “dog-friendly” and they work.

Pat has been a friend for years and I was thrilled when this book was published in 2001. Pat has been writing for the Whole Dog Journal since its inception and I have always found her articles to be thorough, well written and very “in synch” with my training philosophies. She is a skilled and compassionate dog trainer who really knows how to communicate to dog owners through her writing. Jean Donaldson, author of The Culture Clash says, “Pat Miller embodies all that is right about positive dog training.”

KEY CONCEPTS:

1. All living things repeat behaviors that are rewarding and avoid behaviors that are not. You NEVER need to punish your dog to get desired results.

2. Your dog already knows everything you are going to teach him and he always has a choice.

3. Dogs can only learn one behavior for any particular cue.

4. Think in terms of what you want your dog to do, not what you want him not to do.

The Power of Positive Dog Training is a superb “basic dog book” for anyone with a dog, and Green Acres recommends it highly.

Book Review - The Culture Clash, by Jean Donaldson

SUGGESTED AUDIENCE: Anyone who wants to increase their knowledge of canine behavior, and all who consider their dogs to be furry little people with values and morals.

I first read The Culture Clash in 1998 and have been recommending it ever since. People often ask me to recommend books and many times I have been hesitant because there are many bad ones and only a few good ones. The Culture Clash by Jean Donaldson is one of the better books on canine behavior. When first published in 1997, The Culture Clash received the prestigious Maxwell Award from the Dog Writer’s Association of America as the Best Dog Training and Behavior Book of the year. More importantly, this book was one of the first to challenge the dominance myth and punishment based training.

In The Culture Clash, Donaldson helps us to understand our dogs as dogs, and not as furry little creatures that we too often attribute with human like characteristics. Donaldson’s refreshingly new approach has had a tremendous effect on the relations I have with my dogs and my understanding of why they do what they do.
Unfortunately, the depiction of dogs by the mass media, and even many dog people, has created some all to common misconceptions about dogs: that they have morals, know when they have done something wrong, are capable of planning revenge, and have a desire to please. This has done a great disservice to all dogs, resulting in our giving them human like responsibilities and then being disappointed when they cannot live up to our expectations.

Our dogs’ failure to live up to our standards has also led to the proliferation of the “dominance theory” in the dog-human relationship. This in turn has led to the use of punishment based training techniques because of the emphasis on “showing the dog you are the leader.” Donaldson convincingly demonstrates that dogs are NOT disobedient because they are trying to be dominant, but because they do not understand what a cue means or they find other instinctual stimulus to be more motivating than what we are asking of them (e.g. asking them to come when chasing a squirrel). Once we understand this and start applying scientifically validated learning theories to training our dog, we discover that dominance is totally irrelevant. This is evident in our training classes at Green Acres where young children are training the family dog as easily, and sometimes more effectively than their parents.

Donaldson explains how our dogs’ instinctual behaviors can actually be used to make them even better companions. For example, many old school training books would tell you never, ever allow your dog to play “tug-of-war” because it will make the dog dominant. This advice is totally erroneous. As Donaldson explains, dogs in the wild tugging together at a carcass are NOT trying to dominate one another; they are working cooperatively together to dissect the carcass. By playing tug with our dog, with rules of course, we are not making them aggressive, but are building a bond by working together cooperatively as a pack. You will find that for many dogs playing tug is a very motivating reward, possibly more motivating than chasing that squirrel.

FAVORITE QUOTE:

The Top 10 Things We Know About Real Dogs (From The Culture Clash by Jean Donaldson)

The Culture Clash makes a great companion to our clicker training classes.

Book Review – On Talking Terms with Dogs: Calming Signals, by Turid Rugaas

SUGGESTED AUDIENCE: Anyone who interacts or wants to interact with dogs, on any level.

This book, while few in pages, and its author Turid Rugaas, have influenced my understanding of dogs more than any other book or seminar I have read or attended. This gentle, kind, woman is incredibly knowledgeable about canine behavior and ethology. She has taught me and many others how to live in harmony with our dogs by helping us to better understand what they are trying to tell us, and in turn she has taught us a better way to express ourselves to our dogs.

Full of photographs illustrating each point, On Talking Terms With Dogs: Calming Signals focuses on how dogs use specific body language to cutoff aggression and other perceived threats. Dogs use these calming signals to tell one another, and us, when they are feeling anxious and stressed. This book will help you learn 'dog language', for which you will be rewarded with a much better understanding of your pet and his behavior.

FAVORITE QUOTE: “If you want your dog to respect you, you must also respect your dog. A good relationship is based on two-way communication, and living together in a well-balanced togetherness.  Leadership does not solve anything; it only creates problems, in our lives as well as in the dogs’ lives.”

On Talking Terms with Dogs: Calming Signals should be required reading for everyone who has or aspires to work with or share their life with a dog.

Book Review – Dogs – A Startling New Understanding of Canine Origin, Behavior & Evolution, by Raymond and Lorna Coppinger

SUGGESTED AUDIENCE: Those who want to increase their knowledge of how the dog evolved and the dog’s natural history, as a means of better understanding their dog’s needs.

Like most of the other titles on the Green Acres’ List of Recommended Dog Books, this book refutes a great number of the popular myths about the domestic dog with sound science. Dr. Coppinger is a professor at Hampshire College where he teaches evolutionary biology. He and his wife Lorna have over 40 years of experience living and working with all varieties of dogs.

The main premise of this book is that humans did not create the dog by taming and domesticating the wolf, but instead the dog self-evolved from the wolf. Tamer and less energetic wolves started hanging around human settlements for the discarded food and over time these wolves evolved into today’s village dog. Only in the last couple of hundred years have humans become involved in consciously, and not always responsibly, engineering the village dog into the many breeds we see today. The Coppinger’s have studied village dogs (feral dogs living in human communities) as they exist in the world today in places like Mexico City, and Pemba. What they have observed are the same traits we see in the dogs we share our lives with.

FAVORITE QUOTE: “Dogs as a species are most likely less than fifteen thousand years old, which is a barest instant of evolutionary time. Wolves as a species are maybe five million years old, and they need protection from extinction. … [There are] four hundred million dogs in the world – that is a thousand times more dogs than there are wolves. If wolves are the ancient ancestors of dogs that means dogs have achieved a biological coup, successfully outpopulating their ancestors by a lot.”

If you want a better understanding of your dog, or dogs in general, it is very helpful to know how they evolved to become the creatures that they are today. Reading the Coppinger’s Dogs will help you attain that understanding.

Book Review – The Other End Of The Leash, by Patricia McConnell, PhD

SUGGESTED AUDIENCE: Dog lovers wanting to improve the relationship with their dog by understanding how dogs and primates can better communicate with one another.

Back in the early 1990’s, when we still lived in Wisconsin and before we got into the pet care business, Paula and I attended several dog training classes with our dogs Gus and Shed. It was not until 1994 that we found Dr. Patricia McConnell and her training school, Dog’s Best Friend. This was the first class that all of us, humans and dogs alike, truly enjoyed. Why? Because of Trisha’s understanding of how dogs and humans communicate and her emphasis on rewarding good behavior. Now the world can benefit from her knowledge in her new book, The Other End Of The Leash.

The Other End Of The Leash is an information-packed, yet readable book. In it you will learn how to have an improved relationship with your dog through better communication. As a scientist who has studied both primate and canine communication systems, Dr. McConnell has a keen understanding of where the communication between humans and dogs often breaks down, creating frustration and stress for both species. For example, she explains how simple innate greeting patterns of both species can cause conflict. We know that when two people meet, the polite thing to do is to make direct eye contact and walk straight toward one another smiling. However, as Dr. McConnell notes: “The oh-so-polite primate approach is appallingly rude in canine society. You might as well urinate on a dog’s head.” The fact is direct eye contact and a direct approach is very confrontational to a dog.

Dr. McConnell also emphasizes how dogs primarily communicate visually, while humans are a very verbal species. The picture she paints of the frustrated chimp, jumping up and down, waving their hands, and screeching repeatedly is only a slight exaggeration of the frustrated human, saying “sit, sit, sit, ahhhh please sit” while displaying countless bits of body language. Primates, including humans, “…have a tendency to repeat notes when we’re excited, to use loud noises to impress others, and to thrash around whatever is in our paw if we’re frustrated. This behavior has no small effect on our interactions with dogs, who in spite of some barks and growls, mostly communicate visually, get quiet rather than noisy to impress others, and are too busy standing on their paws to do much else with them.” With these fundamental differences, it’s amazing we can communicate with our dogs at all.

While Trisha’s book will certainly enlighten you, it will also move you. Her description of her relationships with her own animals leaves no doubt about her love and commitment. Reading her recollection of how her beloved Luke was almost hit by a car and the passing of her little Border Collie Misty had me very near tears.

FAVORITE QUOTES: “If humans are understandably a bit slow at responding to the visual signals that our dogs are sending, we are downright dense about the signals that we generate ourselves.”

“Forcing dogs into ‘submission’ and screaming in their face is a great way to elicit defensive aggression. It makes sense that a dog would bite, or at least threaten to, in this context. Within their social framework, you’re acting like a lunatic.”

“It seems very human to stay fixated on the negative: ‘No!’ seems to come out of our mouths as easily as breathing. But saying no doesn’t teach a dog what to do, and it keeps the attention focused on it and nothing else.”

I highly recommend The Other End Of The Leash for anyone with a dog in their life.

Book Review – Don’t Shoot the Dog! – The New Art of Teaching and Training, by Karen Pryor

SUGGESTED AUDIENCE: Individuals wanting to have better and happier relationships with all around them, including people, and who want to learn the principles of operant conditioning from a practical viewpoint.

First published in 1984, this book is not so much a “dog training” book, but a book on changing the behavior of people and animals around you, through the science of positive reinforcement. Whether training your dog to sit or getting your spouse to pick up dirty laundry off the floor, this book explains why you will be more successful rewarding desirable behavior than in punishing unwanted behavior.

The author of this book, Karen Pryor, is an experienced dolphin trainer and has been one of the people leading dog trainers and zoo keepers into the modern world of clicker training.

FAVORITE QUOTE: “Any creature-a dog, a horse, a polar bear, even a fish-that you shape with positive reinforcers and a marker signal becomes playful, intelligent, curious and interested in you.”

If you want a better understanding of terms like positive reinforcement, and negative punishment, then this is the book for you. However, and more importantly, if you want to get along better with your friends, family and pets you need to read this book!

Books We Do NOT Recommend

There are many books on dog training and canine behavior that are extremely outdated and contain information that is potentially dangerous and/or inhumane. Many of these books also promote some very erroneous and deceptive ideas about dogs and dog behavior. At Green Acres we feel that we have an ethical responsibility to guide you away from these books. While the following list is not all encompassing, it does list several books that we find seriously flawed.

Cesar’s Way: The Natural, Everyday Guide to Understanding and Correcting Common Dog Problems – by Cesar Milan
How to be Your Dog’s Best Friend, by the Monks of New Skete
The Art of Raising a Puppy, both original and revised editions, by the Monks of New Skete
Mother Knows Best, by Carol Lea Benjamin
Second-Hand Dog, by Carol Lea Benjamin
Surviving Your Dog’s Adolescence, by Carol Lea Benjamin
Dog Problems, by Carol Lea Benjamin
Dog Training for Kids, by Carol Lea Benjamin
Dog Training in Ten Minutes, by Carol Lea Benjamin
Family Dog, by Richard Wolters
Good Owners, Great Dogs, by Brian Kilcommons
Child-Proofing Your Dog, by Brian Kilcommons 
Koehler Method of Dog Training, by Koehler
Good Dog, Bad Dog, by Matthew "Uncle Matty" Margolis and Mordecai Siegal
I Just Got a Puppy: What Do I Do?, by Matthew "Uncle Matty" Margolis and Mordecai Siegal
Solutions for Your Dog and You, by Matthew "Uncle Matty" Margolis and Mordecai Siegal
The Liberated Dog, by Matthew "Uncle Matty" Margolis and Mordecai Siegal
Ultimate Guide to Dog Training, by Matthew "Uncle Matty" Margolis and Mordecai Siegal
When Good Dogs Do Bad Things, by Matthew "Uncle Matty" Margolis and Mordecai Siegal
Woof!, by Matthew "Uncle Matty" Margolis and Mordecai Siegal
Woof! Woof!, by Matthew "Uncle Matty" Margolis and Mordecai Siegal

Notes from The Woof Meow Show, 30JUL06
© Donald J. Hanson, BFRP, CDBC, CPDT