People Training for Good Dogs

Book excerpt: As a former animal officer, Melissa Berryman witnessed every failure imaginable among dogs, their owners, and her community. Drawing from these experiences and her knowledge of both human and canine behaviors, Berryman created the People Training for Good Dogs program to help owners incorporate the canine point of view into dog owners' handling skills. Current understanding leads owners to believe that they must accept a passive role in the complex relationships they have with their dogs and their com-munities. Berryman draws important contrasts between how we train horses and how we train dogs, and she brings to light the consequences of expecting dogs to act and react as people do. By offering insight into the importance of acknowledging and working with core canine social and behavioral drives, Berryman provides owners with sound handling techniques. Staying true to dogs' instincts, she offers a training method of positive and negative feedback that can dramatically improve any owner's level of control. By speaking frankly about aggression and the very real potential for injury when dealing with a dog you can't communicate with, she shares an accessible approach that anyone can use to defuse a potentially disastrous situation.Written with humor and compassion, "People Training for Good Dogs" will quickly show you how to use clear feed-back in order to achieve off-leash vocal control.