Dog Training Decoded

“You are now about to change the way you look at dog training – the only stipulation is that you need to be open-minded, curious and willing to change, because the magic will happen outside of your comfort zone!” These are the words of Simon Prins, one of the most influential and innovative trainers of the 21st Century, who has constantly challenged the boundaries of what mankind and dogs can achieve together. His ground-breaking work Developing a training programme for radio-guided camera dogs. Fitting dogs with sensors, enabling them to carry small robots into operations. Masterminding programmes focused on hard surface tracking, laser-guided attack dogs, and detection dogs for special operations. In a career spanning more than 25 years with the police and military, Simon has developed both the training protocols and often the accompanying technology to advance the fight against terrorism, drug traffickers and other criminal gangs in many parts of the world, and to improve search and rescue missions. Countless lives have been saved as a consequence. Simon not only talks the talk, he has walked the walk, playing a leading role in many undercover operations in his native Holland. He continues to pass on his knowledge and experience by lecturing worldwide and training special forces units in a number of countries. Along the way he has gained remarkable insights into both dogs and handlers. Dog Training Decoded is a story about bridging the gap between trainers, dog handlers and scientists. It’s about real-life operations, about failure and success. It’s about discovering the value of collecting and analysing data, and how to draw on scientific research. It is a manual on how to train dogs, but it will also give you new insights into training and behaviour and – perhaps the biggest challenge of all – it will help you to motivate trainers and handlers to work with positive reinforcement and to discard punishment as a means of changing behaviour.