Customer Reviews: Read 5 more reviews...
 Behavior Problems in Dogs by William E Campbell June 12, 2008
If you want to study dog behavior, this is a great book to start with or add to your collection. The 2nd edition includes clicker training.
 If you have a shy/fearful dog... May 16, 2007
2 out of 3 found this review helpful
don't buy this book. There was very little information on the subject and "fearful" in the index led to info on aggressive dogs and info on how to deal with your dog if they are shy with you and not with strangers (he recommends not hitting them - how brilliant!). My dog has the opposite problem; she is afraid of anything new. Since fear in dogs is the second most common behavior problem (according to Wood's "How to Help Your Shy Dog"), I am very disappointed that Campbell did not devote more attention to this problem.
 Behavior Problems in Dogs January 20, 2007
Great book...how to understand what is truly going on in your dog...Read this book and re-think how your house works. Amazing book, huge turn around for you and your dog.
 A Breakthrough Book August 11, 2005
8 out of 10 found this review helpful
This book opened my eyes in several ways. At the time I read it I had been looking for an approach to dog training that didn't rely on the harsh corrections recommended by proponents of the alpha theory, which were all the rage at the time. Campbell was only the second author I read who claimed that the alpha theory wasn't relevant to training. (Kevin Behan, author of NATURAL DOG TRAINING, 1992, was the other.) What's even more brilliant is that Campbell wrote his book in the 1970s, long before we all found out that the alpha theory is a total myth! (The top wolf experts don't even like to use the word alpha anymore because, as Dr. L. David Mech puts it, "it falsely implies a hierarchical system in which each wolf assumes a place in a linear pecking order," (Canadian Journal of Zoology, 2002).)
I especially like Campbell's "jolly routine" exercise and his distraction/praise approach to stopping a puppy from doing natural, though destructive, behaviors, as opposed to using physical corrections or scolding the pup.
That said, I've found that many of the other exercises-like "no free lunch" (now called NILIF)-don't really work. And some-like the exercise for keeping the dog from going through a door ahead of you-are completely unnecessary. That's why I'm only giving BEHAVIOR PROBLEMS IN DOGS three stars. It's still worth reading though, especially if you're a dog trainer.
Good information, poor organization May 27, 2004
15 out of 18 found this review helpful
A book is only as good as it is useful. I wanted to copy something for my sister, new to dogs, but gave up after 5 minutes of not being able to find it. Because the author really only has 3 recommendations for any given problem (leadership exercises, counter-conditioning ("Jolly routine," in his verbiage), and distract-and-redirect), he should have laid those out somewhere in the book and then applied them to the problems he discusses.That said, the very strong "pros" of this book are:
(a) one of his first tasks is to explain how dogs perceive the world (and, thereby, show why they don't instinctively understand people!);
(b) he speaks in terms of "leadership" instead of "dominance";
(c) he does not compare dogs to wolves or human children -- they are neither!;
(d) he very importantly points out that almost every dog "misbehavior" is due to frustration, and that a dog's basic temperament will determine how it responds to this frustration (outward or inward); and
(e) his solutions are practical, humane, and focused on altering the cause, not punishing the effect. The "minuses" include:
(a) poor presentation of his methods;
(b) criminal lack of proofreading;
(c) some unfortunate outdated terminology (I cringed at every use of the term "correction");
(d) presentation of his "pet" issues of a high-protein diet, and treatment of hyperkinetic dogs. The buyer should also know that he expects you to have trained your dog basic obedience, as he uses basic commands in some of his solutions.
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