Clicker Training for Obedience: Shaping Top Performance-Positively

I live with and train Smooth Fox Terriers, considered by many to be one of the hardest breeds to train in obedience. Since I started using the methods suggested in this book, I've had tremendous success with my dogs.

My oldest male, who earned his CD during my pre clicker training period, after much hard, frustrating work, learned "go out, sit" in 3 short, fun, easy lessons. And, he learned to love to retrieve his dumb bell, finding what others call the "forced retrieve" to be one of his favorite games. And, that is the key. Having fun while learning.

The dog who has fun learning a behavior will carry that behavior over into daily life, and, for me and my dogs, Clicker Training for Obedience is helping us achieve just that. It helped me create a training program that is fun for us all.

The presentation of each segment for training a behavior is such that a trainer new to training can follow along and achieve success.

I highly recommend this book to anyone interested in having a happy, well trained dog. Not just for competition, but for daily life as well.

This book ought to be read together with Ms. K.Pryor's `Don't Shoot the Dog' ... Ms.Pryor's explains the theory and how 'clicker' training had its beginnings ... Mr. Spector explains how 'clicker' training is done ...

Having read most of the clicker books sold by Amazon and now into my first year of training my Beagle & Labrador ... I think this is probably the best so far ... Certainly this book contains the most detailed explanations & instructions as to how 'clicker' should be carried out. Mr. Spector even goes so far as to explain why he uses certain words and expressions in his book ...

To derive the best benefit, this book has to be read carefully (and its a substantial book) ...

The book opens with an introduction to operant and positive reinforcement training methods, and makes a comparison between these 'newer' training styles and the more traditional training methods.

Drawing from his own experience, Mr. Spector then suggests the various stages of training for the dog ... Unlike many other authors/trainers, he begins with teaching the dog to 'target' rather than the usual 'sit, stay & heel' ... innovative to say the least ... and it works. The book covers just about everything a dog & owner needs to learn, including off-leash and distance training.

The strength in this book lies in the clear and detailed explanations for each training stage and training method ... It allowed me to consider what Mr. Spector was saying, to consider his reasons & rational of his advice; and this in turn helped me understand Mr. Spector's methods more fully ... All of which makes for more effective training of my dog ...

Although this book is very much designed for taking a dog through Obedience trials, there is much here that will benefit every dog owner ... even one who only wishes his doggie would stop jumping on his guests ...

Wish there were few more illustrations or photographs though ...

I'm one of those obsessive types. Before I got my dog I read tons of books about raising and training them. I only wish I had found this one first. Every other book I read focused on what I was doing and how I was doing it. Morgan Spector makes you understand that the key is in the dog -- which when you think about makes sense. Even though I have no intention of competing with her, I know that the most important things are being accomplished with the help of this book. Most obviously, she has been invited to visit my parents because her manners have improved so dramatically thanks to this book and its techniques. Don't hesitate -- if you aren't comfortable yelling at your dog, Morgan Spector is for you. By the way, you can theoretically clicker train anything, so this book can help you with recalcitrant cats, children, and husbands too.

This DVD is great. I spent several weeks searching the internet and was surprised how hard it was to find a good parrot training DVD. Some of the DVD's out there teach advanced tricks and some teach basic things like how to pick out a cage or feed your bird (which most people already know by the time they go looking for a DVD) but this DVD was great because it has everything. It starts out by teaching you how to tame your bird and it gets used to being touched or pet. My African Grey parrot hated fingers and did not like to be pet at all, he would bite immediately. But after using the instructions in this video, I was able to tame by bird in about 3 days. Now he loves being pet and has not bit me once while petting him. The DVD also shows how to do deal with a screaming bird and advanced things like rolling your bird over, doing card tricks, waving, shaking head yes or no, etc. There are 3 different segments on the DVD and also a bonus segment about clicker training. The DVD was several hours long and I felt that I really got my moneys worth. Don't me mislead by the photo showing a VHS box, it is really a DVD as described. I wish Amazon would re-title this item, because it is hard to search for and does not come up when you search for bird training or parrot training for some reason. So if you're lucky enough to find it, you should consider buying it.