Playtraining Your Dog | 
 enlarge | Author: Patricia Gail Burnham
Publisher: St. Martin's Griffin
Category: Book
List Price: $13.95
Buy Used: $5.83
You Save: $8.12 (58%)
New (3) Used (14) Collectible (2) from $5.83
Avg. Customer Rating:  14 reviews
Sales Rank: 230944
Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 256
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.7
Dimensions (in): 8 x 5.5 x 0.8
ISBN: 0312616910
Dewey Decimal Number: 636
EAN: 9780312616915
ASIN: 0312616910
Publication Date: December 15, 1985
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Shipping: International shipping available
Condition: Tightly bound with clean pages. Former library copy with protective tape around spine. Well used with cover and edge wear, but very readable.
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Product Description
At last, an inexpensive paperback edition of a book that has been acclaimed as one of the most useful and reliable guides to training your dog.
Obedience training does not have to resemble Marine boot camp, with the dog as the recruit and the trainer as the drill instructor. Nor does it have to be work. Rather, as the title of this comprehensive guide suggests, it can be playful fun for both -- with a few rules thrown in to shape the game itno an obedience exercise.
Playtraining Your Dog provides an alternative to the violence that conventional training methods inflict on the minds and bodies of dogs. Using widely known, standardized exercises from the American Kennel Club, and written in a clear, informative style, this book contributes to realizing the full potential of both the dog and the dog/owner relationship.
Topics covered include:
- instructors & training classes
- training time
- motivation
- advice for showing a dog
- cues & body language
Playtraining Your Dog is an essential addtion to every dog-owner's -- and dog-lover's -- library.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 9 more reviews...
 Finally, a dog training book that GETS the sighthound brain! August 8, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
If you are lucky enough to have a sighthound (greyhound, borzoi, saluki, whippet, italian greyhound, etc.) in your life, you know how special these creatures are. They are NOT brainlessly obedient, and it takes a special touch to communicate with them - and that is why too many dog "experts" consider them to be "untrainable" and "stupid." The reality is QUITE the opposite, folks! A sighthound's brain is a complex wonderland of cognitive reasoning and intelligence ("What's in it for me?"), and because of this, most attempts to train them by traditional methods fail miserably - and the stupid HUMAN blames that on the "stupid" dog - and that is absolutely unfair. It is the failing of the human to understand how the sighthound thinks, learns, and loves that causes the training to fail. Let me be clear: The sighthound did not FAIL to learn; the trainer failed to teach.
Gail UNDERSTANDS the glory of the sighthound brain; she speaks their language, and she understands that when training a sighthound, one must create a PARTNERSHIP lead by the human alpha pack MEMBER, rather than a slave/master dynamic that most dog training books advocate. One must absolutely assume and protect the role of alpha when working with a sighthound, but the challenge comes in nourishing that relationship, making the hound WANT to follow the alpha's lead - rather than simply smashing the ability to think out of the animal and crushing it to your will.
People who know, love, and train sighthounds snicker when we see our intelligent, creative, problem-solving hounds consistently appear on "Stupidest Dog" lists. We KNOW the truth: It's the not intelligence of the HOUND that is reflected on these lists - it is the ability of the human trainer to UNDERSTAND the unique and beautiful brain of the sighthound that is really gauged here!
If you have a sighthound in your life, this book is a MUST.
If you are one of the special angels who have rescued a sighthound, this book MUST be on your shelf!
If you know someone who is failing miserably in their attempts to train their sighthound using the same techniques they use on their German Shepherd, THEY need this book - desperately!
This book WILL save a sighthound's life - if you are on the brink of being giving your hound up, or worse, destroying your hound for behavioral issues, PLEASE BUY THIS BOOK BEFORE YOU DO ANYTHING RASH!
The perfect balance January 1, 2007
2 out of 4 found this review helpful
This book is written for competition obedience, not the average household pet. Ms. Burnham's "recipes" for training from Novice to Utility include breaking down the exercises into smaller bits and then putting everything together.
"Corrections" are a matter of opinion. If you consider putting your dog back into the last position that they were right and trying again, then this book includes corrections. If you think "corrections" are yelling at your dog for being wrong, harsh collar pops, etc. then this book does not include "corrections." In fact Ms. Burnham's well balanced method of praise, physical placement, teaching slowly and play breaks makes a wonderful alternative to those that may not be inclined to go clicker but want something more positive than traditional, military based methods.
Ms. Burnham sums up her philosophy with: "The qualities of a good trainer are adaptability, resourcefulness, observation, concentration, a spirit of fun, a will to play, curiosity, love for the dog and respect for the dog."
That's really perfect for today's competition training.
For the first time trainer, ignore most of the specific AKC rules listed in the book. They are out dated. However, the exercises and titles are still the same.
OLD BUT WONDEFUL November 20, 2006
1 out of 4 found this review helpful
I enjoyed reading it even if it's outdated. It tells you how to have fun!
 Thirty years old, and showing its age... November 1, 2005
23 out of 24 found this review helpful
This was one of the first books on training that mentions prey/play drive, and is an interesting casual read for the dog obedience enthusiast.
In essence, training in play (or prey) drive means rewarding the obedient dog with a tug or chase game, instead of a food treat. This system is very useful when training breeds that have little desire to work for their dinner, but have a strong instinct to chase - breeds like the author's greyhounds. However, Ms Burnham isn't a pure play drive trainer; she also utilises food rewards for some exercises, as well as a certain degree of punishment and negative reinforcement.
"Playtraining your dog" is directed towards competition obedience, instead of day-to-day manners. Obedience exercises from novice to open are covered, including sit, down, heel, stay, send outs, retrieve, and scent discrimination.
The methods and techniques presented here are fairly haphazard. One gets the impression that the author has no real understanding of learning theory or conditioning: she has merely trained her own dogs by trial-and-error, and is now sharing her results with us. The result is that the methods discussed here are all useable, but they are rarely the most sophisticated or effective methods that modern dog training has to offer. They are also relatively chaotic in presentation - there is no particular section about building drive, for example, although Ms Burnham touches on this topic several times throughout the course of the book.
Ms Burnham also uses rather a lot of punishment by today's standards, including during the teaching of several exercises - heeling, retrieving and recalls, to name a few examples. The worry with using punishment while teaching an exercise is that the dog could easily develop a resentful or fearful attitude towards either these particular exercises or towards training as a whole, as he has no idea how to avoid the corrections. To preserve a dog's willing attitude towards work, I personally feel that you are better off using modern "positive" methods to teach an exercise, relying on corrections only if necessary to proof the exercise.
This was a revolutionary book in 1980 - but dog training has come a long way since then. Ms Burnham pushes her dogs into a sit - today we can choose between this method and either luring the dog into a sit with a food treat, or capturing the sitting action with a clicker. Ms Burnham teaches attention heeling with a choke chain - it is more easily shaped off leash, with animation achieved through regular food or prey drive rewards. In short, there are better training books out there.
This book is certainly worth a read if you're interested in competition obedience - some of the suggestions are worthwhile, and the photos of the greyhounds are lovely. If you're a beginner trainer who is after a practical book to teach your dog manners or basic obedience, then give this one a miss.
 Playtraining Your Dog October 21, 2005
8 out of 15 found this review helpful
If you are interested in the dry technical aspects of training it's a good book, but as an educational tool to be read by the whole family, it was not the book of choice. The New Complete Dog Training Manual was read by the whole family (ages 7 to 18) numerous times and served as a guide.
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