Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

I've been watching the changing trends in dog training for about thirty years, using a kind of semiotics approach to the subject, meaning that what you see in any one specific discipline--science, politics, or the arts--may be reflective of an underlying trend within the zeitgeist itself. For dog training, back in the 70s it was the Woodhouse way, even though Babs was kind of insane: "If your dog keeps getting into the chicken coop and killing your chickens, there's nothing to do but kill one of them yourself and beat the offending pooch about the head with the carcass!" (I'm paraphrasing, but still...) Next came the alpha theory, with all the dominance trainers proclaiming that their method was based on "scientific evidence" about canine social behavior, which we now know is a fallacy. According to recent research there is no hierarchy in wild wolf packs and the hierarchies that form in captive wolf groups are totally unnatural. According to authors Masson and McCarthy there is no pecking order in some chicken groups (which is where the idea of dominance hierarchies got its start, back in the 1920s). And according to animal researchers John McNutt and Lesley Boggs, the wild dogs of Africa, who form highly organized social groups, and are the most successful predators in Africa, have no pack leader. This is my roundabout way of saying that I'm amused by the current crop of authors of "positive" dog training books such as Pat Miller, who have a gung-ho, we've finally found it, this is the real way to train attitude. Like Miller I used to train the old-fashioned way and found that it was destructive to the social bond I had with the dogs I trained. So I'm opposed to those methods, just as all "positive" trainers are. And I have no beef with Miller or Jean Donaldson or any of the +R mavens from that standpoint. But from what I can see we're currently living in a zeitgeist, a world culture where rigidly held belief systems--whether they're of a religious, political, or dog training nature--hold sway over real ethical and moral values, and stand in the way of the search for truth. There are three main points where I think "positive" trainers diverge from truth and ethics: ONE: Dogs hate head halters. THEY HATE THEM. Yet all the "positive training" books recommend this hateful device that tortures a dog's emotions. Since it's been propagandized as a "positive training tool" it fits the trainer's pre-molded belief system, which prevents him or her from objectively examining the facts. This is NOT a positive training tool. In fact it's not a training tool at all. It's designed to relentlessly punish the dog for pulling, and does NOTHING to teach him how to enjoy walking next to you. TWO: One of the main "talking points" for most positive trainers is that dogs have a "what's in it for me" attitude, which they say is the key to training. And while the survival instincts of ALL animals impose a strong directive toward self-interest, dogs are the one species that is least likely to exhibit a "me first" attitude as the chief feature of their psychology. If you ask me, they have more of a "what can I do with my energy?" or a "what can we do together?" attitude; they're genetically engineered to want to be team players. THREE: Positive techniques aren't all that positive. They rely too much on food, which is an extrinsic reinforcer, and therefore can create a negative learning experience for the dog. And some techniques for dealing with problem behaviors actually put the dog in a confused, lonely, and agitated state. That's not nice and it's not positive. Instead of forcing the dog to figure out "How can I get a reward from my owner?" I think it's better and more effective to use techniques that build the reward into the behavior, via intrinsic reinforcers. Some books that show you how to do this are PLAYTRAINING YOUR DOG by Patricia Gail Burnham, NATURAL DOG TRAINING by Kevin Behan, and SCHUTZHUND: THEORY AND TRAINING METHODS by Susan Barwig and Stewart Hilliard. Granted, you may have to "weed out" some of the techniques in some of these books (particularly the schutzhund book), but at heart they're all much more positive AND more ethical than THE POWER OF POSITIVE DOG TRAINING. But if your desire is for a training manual that fits in with the current trend or tells you what you already believe about dogs, by all means read and implement the techniques in THE POWER OF POSITIVE DOG TRAINING. It may not make your dog's life all that better, but you'll be safely nestled in the arms of the zeitgeist.