Wendy Volhard is internationally recognized for her contributions to dog training. At the heart of her teaching is the "Motivational Method" for people who value dogs as companions.

Mary Ann Rombold Zeigenfuse, LVT, has been working with dogs and their owners for over 40 years. She runs Best Friends Obedience in Lexington, KY.

Introduction 1

About This Book 1

Foolish Assumptions 3

Icons Used in This Book 3

Where to Go from Here 4

Part 1: Setting the Stage for Successful Training 5

Chapter 1: Dog Training: The Key to Your Dog's Safety and Your Sanity 7

Understanding Why You're Training Buddy: To Do Something or Not to Do Something 8

Identifying a Well-Trained Dog 9

Selecting a Training Model 11

First things first: Considering your dog's breed 12

Training a dog: What are you really doing? 13

Identifying Six Basic Commands Every Dog Needs to Know 16

Recognizing Factors that Influence Success 16

Having a good relationship with your dog 17

Owning a healthy dog 17

Making training time a priority 17

Oh, the Places You and Your Pooch Can Go: Beyond the Basics 18

The Canine Good Citizen Certificate 19

AKC S.T.A.R puppy program 19

AKC tricks titles 19

More than training: Understanding how dogs help people 19

An Exercise to Get You and Your Pooch Started 20

Chapter 2: Getting to Know Your Dog and How He Perceives the World 23

Determining What Motivates You and Your Dog 24

Being Aware of Your Dog's Body Language 24

Recognizing Your Dog's Instinctive Behaviors 25

Prey drive 26

Pack drive 27

Defense drive, fight and flight 28

Understanding how the drives affect training 30

Determining Your Dog's Personality Profile 31

Deciding How You Want Buddy to Act 35

Bringing out drives 36

Switching drives 37

Applying drives to your training 39

Remembering Who's Training Whom 43

Chapter 3: Developing Training Savvy 45

Managing the Dog Within 46

Breed-specific behaviors 46

Temperament 47

Mental sensitivity 48

Responses to visual stimuli 48

Sound sensitivity 49

Touch sensitivity - the adrenaline effect 50

Stressing the Effects of Stress 51

Understanding stress 51

Recognizing the symptoms of stress 52

Origins of stress - intrinsic and extrinsic 53

Relating stress to learning 54

Stress and distraction training 54

Managing stress 55

Managing Your Dog's Environment 55

Starting on the right foot 55

Recognizing your dog's social needs 56

Identifying your dog's emotional needs 57

Feeding your dog's nutritional needs 57

Understanding the "You" Factor 58

Knowing your expectations 58

Knowing your attitude 60

Being consistent with commands and tone of voice 61

Outlasting your dog - be persistent 62

Knowing to avoid "no" 63

Repeating commands 63

Chapter 4: Understanding the Vital Role That Nutrition and Health Play in Training 65

Finding the Right Food for Buddy 66

Deciphering dog food labels 67

Evaluating Buddy's current food 69

Understanding the Nutrients Your Dog Needs 70

Meeting puppy's nutritional needs 71

Keeping your dog's diet rich in protein 72

Going easy on the carbohydrates 74

Knowing the value of fats - in moderation 75

Ensuring that your dog's diet is fortified with

vitamins and minerals 76

Don't forget to quench his thirst: Keeping fresh water around 77

Paying close attention to preservatives 78

Making Choices about How to Feed Buddy 79

Feeding Buddy commercial dry food 79

Offering beefed-up commercial dry food 80

Trying a raw food or frozen diet 82

Making your own food: Wendy's Natural Diet 84

Using the Natural Diet Foundation (NDF2) 85

Transferring Buddy to his new diet 86

Sizing up supplements 87

Exploring Common Health Issues That Affect Behavior and Training 87

Here comes that needle again: Examining vaccination issues 89

Uncovering the rise in doggy hypothyroidism 93

The bone crusher: "Oh, my aching back" 96

Quelling fear, anxiety, and other conditions with homeopathy 96

Treating chronic conditions with acupuncture 98

Chapter 5: Gearing Up for Training Success 99

Choosing the Right Training Leash and Collar 100

Deciding on a leash 100

Selecting a collar 102

Readying a Reward: Treats Are Your Training Buddies 107

Picking the ideal tasty treat 108

Opting for toys when food treats don't work 109

Considering Other Equipment You Can Use 109

Using head halters 110

Going for a body harness 111

Exploring electronic and other training and management equipment 112

Part 2: Performing Puppy Preliminaries 119

Chapter 6: Bringing Your Puppy Home: What You Need to Know 121

Preparing for Puppy's Arrival 122

Puppy's home at home: Readying a crate 123

Puppy's menu: Selecting a proper diet and set of dishes 127

Puppy's everyday collar, ID, and leash: Preparing Buddy to go outside 128

Puppy's toys: Playing with Buddy 128

Bringing Puppy Home - Now What? 129

Getting your puppy used to his collar and leash 130

Getting Buddy situated in his new home 132

Introducing puppies and kids 133

Meeting resident pets 134

Tending to his potty needs 135

Deciding where your puppy should sleep 136

Starting Buddy's Education 136

Training for grooming 137

Spaying and neutering 142

Solving Perplexing Puppy Problems 142

Chapter 7: Surviving Your Puppy's Critical Growth Periods 145

Understanding Your Puppy's Early Development 146

Birth to 7 weeks: the Canine Socialization Period 146

Getting to know everyone: Weeks 7-12 the

Human Socialization Period 148

Suddenly he's afraid: Weeks 8-12 the Fear Imprint Period 149

Now he wants to leave home: Beyond 12 weeks: "Been there, done that" 150

The Terrible Twos: Managing the Adolescent from 4 Months to 2 Years 151

Surviving the juvenile flakies 152

Blame it on the hormones: Understanding how hormones affect behavior 153

Meeting the mature adult when your dog finally grows up 154

Spaying or Neutering to Help with Behavior and Training 155

Heeding the advantages 155

Acknowledging the disadvantages 156

Knowing when to spay or neuter 157

Part 3: Tackling Training Basics 159

Chapter 8: The Ins and Outs of Housetraining 161

Helping Buddy Get Used to His Crate 162

Training a Dog to Eliminate Outside 164

Hold elimination when inside the house 164

Know why he's outside - to eliminate 166

Prove to Buddy that you're trustworthy to take him outside 167

Establishing a Regular Feeding and Elimination Schedule 168

Designating a Regular Toilet Area 169

When Accidents Happen - Knowing What to Do 171

Avoiding punishment 171

Dealing with the accidents 172

Cleaning accidents 172

Using an Exercise Pen for Housetraining 173

Chapter 9: Focusing on Some Basic Training Commands 175

Training for Attention: Praise Versus Petting 175

Understanding the difference between the two 176

Using Okay to release from work 176

Practice getting your dog's attention 177

Using the Yes command 177

Practicing Name Recognition 178

Sequence 1: Having Buddy move toward you when he hears his name 178

Sequence 2: Adding Come after his name 179

Sequence 3: Making Sit mandatory 180

Training Your Dog the Touch Command 180

Sequence 1: Getting Buddy to move toward you 180

Sequence 2: Increasing the distance Buddy needs to move toward you 181

Sequence 3: Not offering treat in the flat Touch hand 182

Sequence 4: Moving the touch hand in different positions 182

Sequence 5: Mixing up the hand you offer 183

Greeting with the Hello Command 184

Sequence 1: Focusing on the treat 184

Sequence 2: Greeting and praising 184

Sequence 3: Training Buddy to hold the sitting position longer 185

Sequence 4: Having a friend help 185

Leave It: Getting Your Dog to Leave Stuff Alone 186

Sequence 1: Introducing Leave It 186

Sequence 2: Looking at you 187

Sequence 3: Moving the treat from your hand to the floor 188

Sequence 4: "Leaving" a dropped food item 188

Sequence 5: "Leaving" a found item on the ground outside 189

Understanding other uses for Leave It 190

Chapter 10: Coming and Going: Two Essential Commands to Teach Buddy 191

Understanding the Importance of Leadership: Okay Is the Word 191

Teaching Your Dog to Come When Called 193

Teaching Buddy the Recall Game 193

Remembering what's important when you use the Come command 196

Training Your Dog to Handle Distractions 198

Teaching Come with first-degree distractions 198

Teaching Come with second-degree distractions 199

Teaching Come with third-degree distractions 200

Focusing on the Opposite of Come - Go 201

Sequence 1: Teaching a target 202

Sequence 2: Add Come after the release 203

Sequence 3: Increase the distance to the target 203

Chapter 11: Mastering Some Fundamentals: Sit, Down, and Stay 205

Understanding Why Sit Is So Important 206

Introducing Down and Its Commands 206

Training Your Dog Sit and Down Simultaneously 207

Sequence 1: Placing and showing 208

Sequence 2: Adding the Down 208

Sequence 3: Luring into the Down 209

Sequence 4: Luring into the Sit 210

Sequence 5: Adding collar pressure 211

Sequence 6: Foregoing the treat 212

Warming Up with the Long-Down Exercise 212