Book Summary
Canine Enrichment for the Real World
By Allie Bender, CDBC & Emily Strong, CDBC Book Summary A major focus in all my training and behavior modification work is ensuring sufficient and appropriate enrichment for my client dogs. But, what exactly is enrichment? Is it just physical exercise? Just mental stimulation? And if it is those things, what constitutes “sufficient and appropriate”?…
Read MoreThe Human Half of Dog Training By Risë VanFleet
Book Summary I have said from the beginning of my training career that 80% of training a dog is training the person handling the dog. This is because training the dog is actually pretty easy. The hard part is teaching the person how to be consistent in their communication with the dog – both…
Read MoreOn Talking Terms With Dogs: Calming Signals By Turid Rugaas
Book Summary Turid Rugaas does an excellent job in explaining the many subtle signals that dogs use to communicate when they are uncomfortable in social situations. These are referred to as calming signals. While she acknowledges that we don’t know if such signals are given with direct intent to communicate or if they are simply…
Read MoreEmpowerment Training By James O’heare
Understanding Empowerment, Training For It, And Rehabilitating Disempowerment Book Summary Mr. O’Heare does a nice job of summarizing basic learning theory as understood by behaviorism and applied behavior analysis. He also provides details of the evolution of behavior modification techniques. He covers past methodology when the focus was on using aversive stimuli and punishment to…
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