Recommended Reading, Watching, Listening

From Karen Pryor

• Getting Started: Clicker Training for Dogs, by Karen Pryor
  • AGSD’s Comment: A classic full of great clicker training help.
• Click’n Connect: Training Your Dog – A Lifelong Journey, By Teah Anders
  • AGSD’s Comment: Anything offered by Karen Pryor is great and this book is no different. It outlines an effective way to not only raise a well trained dog but also a great companion. Super book.
• Chill out Fido, by Nan Arthur
  • AGSD’s Comment: Like the idea of a calm, mannerly dog who can actually THINK while in exciting situations (such as front door greetings), well this is the book for you. Learn how to teach your dog to control himself! What a great goal that will make your puppy grow into a much more pleasant companion.

The above titles, plus many more, are available along with a great library of book, video, audio downloads as well as DVDs and CDs from:

www.clickertraining.com

This website is one-stop shopping for everything you will need to train your puppy effectively and positively plus it’s content includes tons of free information!

From Patricia McConnell, PhD

• Puppy Primer. Getting your puppy off on the right paw.
  • AGSD’s Comment: Our favorite puppy book because it is packed full of puppy and family friendly tips for raising outstanding companion dogs.
• Way to go: How to house train a dog of any age.
  • AGSD’s Comment: Our clients report better, faster, house training using this booklet then any other resource.

Great booklets to prevent (and treat) common sources of problems in adult dogs.

• The Feisty Fido: Help for the leash aggressive dog.
  • AGSD’s Comment: Use this booklet to avoid the most common, and annoying, inappropriate form of aggression in dogs. Employ this method from day one and you will never have to deal with a leash aggressive (or even unmannerly) adult dog.
• I’ll be home soon: how to treat and prevent separation anxiety.
  • AGSD’s Comment: Preventing separation anxiety is very easy, treating a dog with separation anxiety is difficult, time consuming, and expensive (can we say new sofa) invest in this booklet to learn ways to ensure your dog never develops this common and difficult to treat behavior problem.
• Feeling outnumbered?
  • AGSD’s Comment: Do you have more then 1 dog? Bringing a new puppy home to a family that includes dogs? This booklet is a lifesaver for those with multiple dog households it provide easy to use tools and methods for ensuring your dogs are mannerly, and get along well together. As most of our clients already have one dog we find this booklet to be one of our most recommended.

All the above, affordable, titles are available from:

http://www.patriciamcconnell.com/category/dog-training-books

Specific Recommendations

Dogs and kids, making sure everything goes right the first time!

If you have dogs and kids interacting together, these are the most important books you can have:

• Good Dog! Kids Teach Kids about Dog Behavior and Training. Available from Karen Pryor, this is a great resources for little kids to teenagers. This book can be read by, or to, children while they are waiting for their puppy to help ensure a optimal transition for both child and puppy!
• The Other End of the Leash, Why We Do What We Do Around Dogs, by Patricia McConnell, PhD.
• For the Love of a Dog, Understanding Emotion in You and Your Best Friend. By Patricia McConnell, PhD.

These last two books will teach you to read your dogs body language and facial expressions. Why is that important? Most folks think dog bites “come out of no where” (which they never do) and since most on the receiving end of a bite are children, bitten by familiar dogs, we feel it is important for any parent whose children are interacting with any dogs to be able to read the body language and facial expressions of dogs and then teach their children to do the same. Dog communicate with us all the time but without training we often misinterpret what they are trying to tell us which can lead to many problems, not only with aggression but in many areas of our lives with dogs. Enjoyable reads these two books also delve into training concepts and management issues. Excellent books well worth the time to read or listen to. Both these books are available from most library systems as well as on CD (for those of us with no time to read!).

House Training

• Way to Go, How to House Train a Dog of Any Age, by Patricia McConnell, PhD.

German Shepherd Dog Information

• German Shepherd Dog Club of America
• German Shepherd Dog Club of America – Working Dog Association
• Orthopedic Foundation For Animals
• German Shepherds For Dummies. In my opinion, no breed-specific book is worth buying, but this handy book has useful information on the breed, and is available from most library systems.
• For Clicker Training: www.clickertraining.com
• The American Kennel Club
• The German SV (Verein für Deutsche Schäferhunde)
• The World Canine Organisation (FCI)