This How-To book is not a standalone. It is part of a training platform that is larger in scope, including personal lessons, a YouTube channel, a video library (at a cost) and Instagram and Facebook pages.
The first few chapters cover the broader picture: the philosophical part.
A valuable bit of advice from the start is on how to choose a dog trainer. It gives a quick brush through different schools of training. Then the discussion turns to Ross’s philosophy, a training style with rules, boundaries, and a focus on motivation of the pet.
Ross makes a point of the 35 years of experience dog training. I spent 50 years training people, and I have to say, our approach doesn’t differ too much. It was entertaining to hear him tell us not to nag our dogs, good advice to human mothers everywhere. His opinion of how long an idea stays in a dog’s mind (one or two seconds) is bang on.
Some people might find his instructions have an overdependence on a prong collar, but that is possibly, in his opinion, what most inexperienced dog owners need.
A new idea for me was having the dog on leash all day at first, so it feels under the owner’s authority.
The rest of the book consists of chapters on basic training objectives like Sit, Stay, Leave it. These sets of instructions are thorough and easy to understand, but limited in scope.
Navigation through the book is easy, with clear references to specific chapters when required. The style of writing is mostly straightforward, although a couple of places I wasn’t sure what he was referring to. I’m sure the paragraph on close heeling has the left and right hand turn reversed. At that point, a diagram would have helped.
One point I picked up: this is a trainer-oriented method. It goes on the assumption that Ross is training us to achieve certain behaviours from our dog. It does not go into dog psychology or why a dog does what it does. There is a lot of “do this and the dog will do that. Period.”
This is not a complete guide to training your dog. It is a simple, straightforward introduction to the subject. It is useful in itself, but it would be more value as part of the author’s comprehensive training program.
Four stars
This review was originally posted on Reedsy Discovery.
