“So adorable! If you aren’t doing something similar already I highly recommend crate games. The Calgary humane society has a fantastic googleable pdf of these games that help shape the crate into such a wonderful place to be. Plus it will help your bond too!”
“It is packed full of useful information and written in a no-nonsense, no jargon way that is easy to follow.” (2 - 5-star Amazon review)
“I really like this book because it focuses on positive reinforcement to shape a puppy’s behaviour, rather than punishment & constant correction.” (2 - 5-star Amazon review)
“Doggy Dan’s big advice for the leash was to get a harness that clips at the front (I think it’s an affiliate product) so the dog really CAN’T pull without being redirected. I’m still trying to beat it through training and motivation. It’s coming along slowly, but she’s only 11 months old.”
“The foundation for the training method described in the book is to have a praise party when puppy does something you want them to do, reward with lots of fusses & a tasty treat, & pup soon learns that good things happen when they behave a certain way, & nothing exciting happens when they behave inappropriately. It makes perfect sense!” (2 - 5-star Amazon review)
Dr Karen Overall’s Protocol for Relaxation
“Seriously if you lived closer by I’d be offering to pay you for it. He’ll be 2 in October. My biggest struggle is walking him. We walk 3 times a day and each time he’s dragging me. Not fun with fibromyalgia. Hopefully getting him in a class in September. It’s really impressive what you’ve taught him at such a young age.”
“It’s been a LONG road for us as we tried three other trainers over the years before finding a training style that gave us hope. Since then, we have been doing Behavior Adjustment Training (BAT), in progressive levels. We started with a private trainer, graduated to a growly dog group class, and now are in what the training facility called growly dog clinic, basically we meet up with a trainer and other growly dog group class graduates on the weekends to practice what we learned with other cranky dogs and progress our skills and exposure. TLDR treats, repeats, and lots of time.”
“There are genuinely well-written factual sections, narrated in a documentary style voice, which are very interesting. I point the reader to chapter 13 [How to Read Your Dog] as the best example of this” (Ref: 1; 4-star Amazon review)
“One of my main points of dissatisfaction with this book is Mr Hall does not quote any sources so the interested reader can not easily look into matters or interest raised. He quotes quite a number of academic papers and studies but does not reference them. This is pretty poor as this book could be a really useful stepping stone for many readers.” (Ref: 1; 4-star Amazon review)
“Thought it would go through all different scenarios to train dog but its more like a biography” (Ref: 1; 2-star Amazon review)
“So refreshing to read a book that mixes up understanding dog behaviour, memoir, practical tips on dog training, humour and anecdotal stories” (Ref: 1; 2-star Amazon review)
“Nothing in book about how to stop dogs barking.” (Ref: 1; 3-star Amazon review)
“The reason that I’ve only given this two stars reflects my disappointment in the lack of detail in resolving issues, for example the couple who were unable to cohabit together because one had a Chihuahua who was bullying the others Great Dane, after going on and on as usual about irrelevant matters we are told the problem was eventually resolved with no further details.” (Ref: 1; 2-star Amazon review)
“In part 1 a lot of theory was explored and myths busted. I learned that dogs shake when they have been stressed to release their muscles our anxious rescue Dudley does that. I learned that Buddy our cute dog is shamelessly manipulating me and I spoil him. I didn’t want to admit that. Our old dog Gypsy who we took on at 10 and is blind - loved the chapter on disabled dogs. Recognised so much and found out the reason she knows I am in the bath and comes and sits in there with me in unknown, but blind dogs know things. When we took her on we were told never to let her off a lead and it was good Graham confirmed it is ok to. We have done for some time. I cried at the chapter where Graham had Axel and Gordon put to sleep, but even that was useful. Gypsy is elderly and ill not ready for the rainbow bridge 🌈 yet, but sensible advice to keep in mind for when that happened. Also laughs at the stories and antidotes. I hope there will be more books to come.” (Ref: 1; 5-star Amazon review)
“What I like most about Graeme’s training, is that he not only looks at the behaviour, but seeks to discover the reason behind it.” (Ref: 1; 5-star Amazon review)
“You finish the book having a far better understanding of how your words and actions might be interpreted by your dog and what you can learn from your dog’s reactions.” (Ref: 1; 5-star Amazon review)
“My philosophy on training is to work WITH the animal’s pack nature and instincts. No sense fighting nature! Or should I say, getting maximum results with minimum effort is best achieved when you work with nature”
“Great book for normal puppies I guess, but not for my puppy. Many of the training tips do not apply to the Samoyed breed. I bought and read the book prior to picking up my Samoyed puppy, however it has proven to be useless because Samoyed’s are completely different to other breeds and needs specialist training. Make sure you research properly on your dog breed before buying the book!” (2 - 4-star Amazon review)
“Good tips and guidebook, however not to be followed to the letter as totally impractical / impossible for some ie toilet paper training with a pen in your bedroom and running outside when pup wants a pee at all hrs , could get messy ! My pup is graduating to outdoor toileting with praise n treat tactics and doing very well indeed ! With the option of being caught short indoors with training pad , so haven’t read all of it yet so going on the authors doctrine so far will be taking and leaving it worth a read though” (2 - 4-star Amazon review)
“Nothing beats a real trainer training your dog but this book is a cheap alternative to get you started.” (2 - 4-star Amazon review)
“After reading the reviews and seeing some footage of Steve Mann I had such high hopes for this book. We are new to getting a puppy so I wanted a complete guide for novices on raising a happy puppy. Unfortunately this didn’t hit the mark. Far too many times I was left frustrated when certain aspects weren’t explained very well (For example: It’s OK to comfort your puppy at night - but no explanation as to what is the right way to not end up with an issue in future?) Training was explained reasonably well but help and advice on what to do if things are going wrong was lacking for me. The other thing he fails to point out a lot is what the benefits are of doing certain things with your dog. What do they get out of it? After all isn’t that why we’re doing it. Eye contact was a classic example. Amazing I can get my dog to look at me but where and how do I put this to practical use for me and my dog other than bonding with them. I purchased The Perfect Puppy as well and honestly this was a far more comprehensive guide for new puppy owners. Buy that instead!” (2 - 3-star Amazon review)
“Having rehabilitated and raised many dogs for over 40 years I only half agree with the techniques in this book. When a powerful dog has inappropriate chew tendencies it has to learn NO from day one, not distraction and offering another item to chew as an alternative. Too many mixed signals. Some useful tips for beginners and or idiots.” (2 - 3-star Amazon review)
“Steve’s book is fun and well-written, clear to understand and with a basic explanation of his philosophy. I’ve not gone through the whole thing with my puppy yet, but it certainly builds on the bond of love and friendship that we have with our doggy buddy. My only concern is the treats. Treats for sitting, treats for eye-contact, treats for recall, treats for everything. Dogs love to eat, we all know that, but I’m concerned that my puppy is going to be a right porker by the end of it. It would be good to know if good old love and affection can have equal results.” (2 - 3-star Amazon review)
“I’m sure there are many people who found this book amusing - good for them. Edit out the ‘humour’, make the format more concise, make the lessons chronologically relevant to a puppy’s development… and you’d have a better than half decent book. I ordered one from a different author in the end.” (2 - 3-star Amazon review)
“Having had a dog before, I was looking for a book that’s concise. This books rambles on humourously and eventually makes a point. Lacks pictures.” (2 - 2-star Amazon review)
“I bought this book on the strength of all the good reviews it had got. Upon starting to read it I found it more like an autobiography and in places quite patronising. I stuck with it but once I got to the section referring to what a dead dog would and wouldn’t do I decided that this book would be much better used to prop up my wonky table leg. Do yourself a favour and buy Grahame halls book.” (2 - 2-star Amazon review)
“Patronising, basic, funny in places but mentioning what a dead dog would and wouldn’t do, come on please we are not aged 5, do yourself a favour and buy or read Graham Halls book.” (2 - 2-star Amazon review)
“This doesn’t seem to have been written by someone who actually trained a puppy - or, maybe just not a cocker spaniel!” (2 - 2-star Amazon review)
“I felt like the good parts of this book could have been a blog post. The jist is, set the puppy up to suceed rather than fail, reward good behaviour, don’t punish, take small steps. Every section is just going through what small steps to take with a lot of druming in the basic message. But it really lacks any practicle advise for problems that are almost certain to come up. The first thing to teach is a reflex to name, so the puppy responds (looks at you) when it’s name is called. It warns you not to over use it. we had this going really well, until we introduced the dog to literally anyone who knows it’s name and they over use all meaning out of it. We could have used any word to mean ‘look at me’, why were we set up for failure like that?, or are we meant to tell all our friends and family not to do what they will naturally do on first meeting a dog. Another example: puppy has an accident with toilet training, don’t tell them off, and definately don’t associate the crate as a punishment place is the advice from the book. So what do I do with the dog while I clear up? If I leave them out they are interested in the cloth I keep shaking around, obviously, and end up spreading the mess everywhere. If i put them in the crate or another room they whine and cry and it seems like a punishment, if I put them in the crate with a load of treats is that a reward. The book advises just standing there, presumably knee deep in poo. Likewise, you MUST socailse your dog, the author stresses this point a lot and gives a long list of places to go. But puppies shouldn’t go out until they have had their second round of vaccinations, this isn’t even mentioned (anywhere in the book), what message are you meant to take from that, how are you meant to get them out when you can’t take them out? No advice at all. I also don’t think this book does a good job of selling positive reinforcement. The authour has a test, the ‘dead dog’ test: If a dead dog can do it you can’t train it. Instead you are to think of a mutually exclusive behaviour, your dog can’t jump up if you tell it to sit for example. But what do you want the dog to do instead of barking? exactly what they are doing but no barking… oh. It is easy to conclude that if your only tool is treats he is right, how could you ever train anything not to do somthing if you only had rewards? Yet the world is full of dogs that don’t [insert behaviour here] so it must be possible. The obvious wrong answer is that you should punish the dog, but there are better ways that could have been explained in the book, this again seems like a massive ommision, what to do if your dog is often doing a particular thing you don’t like is a problem everyone will face.” (2 - 2-star Amazon review)
What was good about “Doggy Dan’s” product?
- “Watched as many vids as I could, then figured that they were so good I wanted to see more”
- “His technique resonated with my wife and I. It’s all about establishing yourself as the Pack Leader in a gentle way.”
- “He always seems to get immediate results and watching something done on a video makes it very easy to copy at home.”
- “His message is good, the methods work, but…”
What was bad about “Doggy Dan’s” product?
- “It was a bit irritating that every podcast gave some useful info and then kind of forced you to go to the website”
- “The online community was a bit of a waste of time”
- “As you’d expect, the vast majority of people have the same small number of problems so the threads would be repeated over and over again
- “My only complaint is that every answer ended up being pretty much the same thing - remember the 5 Golden Rules”
- “…but a lot of it (the content) was repetitive”
- “Even though he was still adding new videos every week or so (with the requisite stream of emails to get you all excited) I reached a point when I didn’t expect anything new”
- “The content is vast but not deep”
- “The challenge that I didn’t really get results with from D.D. was with pulling on the leash”
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[#hall2021alldogsgreat]: Graham Hall (2021): All Dogs Great and Small: What I’ve learned training dogs Kindle Edition All Dogs Great and Small: What I’ve learned training dogs, Ebury Press.
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[#mann2019easypeasypuppysqueezy]: Steve Mann (2019): Easy Peasy Puppy Squeezy: The UK’s No.1 Dog Training Book, Blink Publishing.