Natural Dog Training: Working from the Dog's Point of View

Natural Dog Training is about how dogs see the world and what this means in regards to training. The first part of this book presents a new theory for the social behavior of canines, featuring the drive to hunt, not the pack instincts, as seminal to canine behavior. The second part reinterprets how dogs actually learn. The third section presents exercises and handling techniques to put this theory into practice with a puppy. The final section sets forth a training program with a special emphasis on coming when called.

Canis familiaris enters the New Age as Behan, owner and head trainer of a Connecticut kennel, proposes a new theory to explain man's best friend's behavior--to wit, that "making prey is the entire scope of the learning process in canines and is responsible for the species' advanced form of social living." He expands on this intriguing hypothesis in several lengthy chapters, but with a lot of sloganistic phrases about "harmonic pathways" and "flow of drive" instead of scientific or logical argument--and his overview of canine domestication is surely ahistorical. The prey instinct, Behan argues, can be directed toward toys or even moving vehicles as well as other animals, and can be used to motivate a dog in training. His actual methods are not wholly original, but they are useful. Lessons offer a host of incentives to make and keep training a positive experience for dog and handler--at least, those handlers willing to entertain suggestions about "waking the puppy within." Illustrations not seen by PW.
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.