Customer Reviews
Must have book for every dog owner - By: Mirror Spock, 26 Nov 2008 
I bought this book after borrowing a copy from my sister,
I have used the clicker method on my dog, & I recomend it to anyone that has a dog & wants him to be wellbehaved & happy.
This book should be on the curriculum! Outstanding book - By: A. Cowie, 17 Jul 2008 
Similar to Dr Breach, I came to this book through Amy Sutherlands book (having read her article "What Shamu taught me... [etc]"), but what I was looking forin Amy's book was not there - it was herein "Don't Shoot the Dog" - & I can't agree more with Dr Bream.
"Don't Shoot the Dog" isin my top 10 books I have read of all time. I have trained & taught all my life, & every page of this book has been an epiphany for me. I have learnt what it is about my teaching/training methods (that others say is my natural ability) that work so well, & I have been able to refine what I do. Rather than specific solutions, this provides the formula through which you can come up with each & every one of your own solutions, tailor-made to that specific training aim.
Every politician should read this, every school child should study this as part of the curriculum. It has changed my philosophy & understanding of others, & if this were practiced as a general rulein society, society would be immeasurably better for it. For a small book this has a very long reach.
My one criticism: the title has restricted the audience. "Don't Shoot the Dog" is a book about developing behaviourin the most positive, & yet also the most extraordinarily effective, way possible. It is a book that engenders tolerancein the trainer & cooperationin the trainee. It is a book that builds trust & makes both sides winnersin interactions.
What it is not, is a book about dogs (or shooting)!
a VERY usefull book - By: nona, 03 Jun 2008 This book was recommended to me by the psychologist who we consult regarding our son with autism. This is indeed the book that best equips us with dealing with our sons behaviours. I read the whole thing not with dogs but with my sonin mind & it completely sums up the best way to teach him. I would be happy if all special needs schools read this book with an open mind. It would change a LOT of things.
Full of Jargon-Speak and little content - By: Mrs. D. Williams, 08 Mar 2008 
I was extremely disappointed with this book. I have spent many years workingin staff development & coaching. I am also a dog owner & interestedin training methods. I found this book to be full american psychobable, but very low on anything practical usable or even new. The Author talks a great deal about how fabulous she is as an animal trainer but is apparently unable to describe how or why. If you exclude all the maeaningless language she has very little to say & the examples she quotes do not appear to back up her assertions on how people/animals respond to coaching. there are much better animal training beeks around & much better people training/coaching books too. Don't waste your money
One of the most beneficial books you could ever read - By: Andrew Barrett, 28 Nov 2007 I first read this book a couple of years ago & since then have recommended it to anyone who would listen. I've also bought four copies & given them as gifts.
I decided recently that I should reread it to reinforce the ideas & to see if it was as good as I remembered. It is.
When I first read this book I can remember being literally horrified at the methods I had been using to try to modify other peoples' behaviour (family, girlfriend, colleagues, etc.). Any time you attempt to change the behaviour of any person or animal you are - whether you realise it or not - attempting to train them.
It turns out that the methods most people use (usually unconsciously or because they do not know better) are both ineffective & unpleasant - especially punishment. It is rarein life that you can change to a different method of doing something vitally important that is both much more pleasant for all of those involved & produces better results. This book demonstrates one of these happy occasions.
All of our attempts to change the behaviour of other creatures can be broken down into three categories: punishment, negative reinforcement & positive reinforcement. Punishment is an aversive applied after the event (such as grounding your kids or putting a criminalin jail). Negative reinforcement is an aversive (punisher) applied when an unwanted behaviour is occurring which is then stopped when the unwanted behaviour stops (such as the use of a choke chain on a dog). Positive reinforcement involves rewarding desired behaviour (for example using praise or food).
Karen Pryor's methods originate with the findings of American psychologist B F Skinner & her work as a dolphin trainer. Dolphins are unusual creaturesin that it is not really possible to train them using the traditional methods of negative reinforcement or punishment. Dolphin trainers thus had no choice except to explore what was possible using only positive reinforcement, particularly using the powerful tool of a conditioned reinforcer - something that the training subject associates with a reward, such as a clicker or whistle.
(The advantage of a conditioned reinforcer is that it becomes possible to show the subject precisely what it was you liked because you can indicate without any delay. A lot of training problems are simply due to problemsin communication. For example, when you yell at your dog for jumping into the lake & it comes over to you & you then tell it off forcefully, how does the dog know that you are telling it off for jumpingin the lake rather than coming over to you when you call? And should you be surprised when you find your dog won't come reliably when you call for it?)
Dolphins were (are?) considered different to other animalsin their level of intelligence, playfulness, curiosity & friendliness to humans. I found it absolutely fascinating that Pryor has found that when other animals - dogs, horses, bears & even fish - are trained only using positive reinforcement they show the same characteristics as dolphins. Even more interesting is Pryor's finding that if even a small amount of negative training (all of which involve use of a punisher) is mixedin you lose all or virtually all of the benefits. And what good sense this makes: how could a dog that is regularly throttled with a chain by its 'beloved' owner have the same level of trust, curiosity & freedom from fear as one that was only praised when it did something that was desired? This has extremely important ramifications for our conductin our daily lives.
One of the principal benefits of Pryor's book is that she teaches us that it is often helpful to make an effort to see the situation from the other side. This sounds trite but is actually the opposite: a simple but very powerful tool. Often problems originate from a communication problem and/or because we find we are actually not rewarding or punishing the behaviour we think we are (as my dog example above shows).
I have found Pryor's methods immensely liberating. Previously I always felt that is was somehow my 'duty' to try to correct unwanted behaviour (whether is was something my girlfriend did, service I was unhappy about at a restaurant, or whatever). Thus I either ended up with an unpleasant situation (when is remonstrating with people pleasant?) or felt that I had given up because I was weak. Now I understand that one can & should just wait for behaviour one wants & deliberately reward it. This is the difference between a life filled with negativity & the total opposite. And the results are also better! What a marvellous gift Karen Pryor has given us.
