My Smart Puppy: Fun, Effective, and Easy Puppy Training (Book & 60min DVD)

Schnauzer Books from Amazon

My Smart Puppy: Fun, Effective, and Easy Puppy Training (Book & 60min DVD)

List Price: $25.99
Amazon Price: $13.03

Average Customer Rating:

(29 reviews)

Editorial Review: Raising a happy, well-adjusted puppy is much like raising a child--owners have to listen to what their puppy's behavior is trying to tell them. And it's far simpler than people think. With the intuitive and step-by-step methods included in this invaluable book (with a bonus DVD featuring demonstrations of great training techniques) from experts Brian Kilcommons and Sarah Wilson, puppies can be trained quickly and painlessly. Readers will learn: - The easy way to housebreak or paper-train your pup - Quick lessons in canine communication - Common problems and quick solutions, from barking to mouthing to chasing cars or people...and more! With humor, time-tested advice, and an arsenal of tricks, MY SMART PUPPY teaches new dog owners everything they need to know to raise a healthy, happy, and well-adjusted dog.

Customer Reviews:

0 of 0 found this review helpful:

Not perfect, but very helpful, 2008-07-13
This book is chalk full of great techniques and ideas! Overall, the two authors are brilliant and the book has been very helpful in training our pup some basic commands. However, it's not perfect and some points seems impractical, flawed, or idealized. Another somewhat minor annoying thing is that there are a lot of cross-references to other sections of the books and I find myself frequently thinking "couldn't there be a better way for formatting the book so that there weren't so many cross references?" Anyway, I still think the book is very helpful for training -- especially when used with Cesar Millan's approach to pack leadership.

1 of 1 found this review helpful:

My Smart Puppy, 2008-06-18
I found this book very informative and helpful, However, it did not come from Amazon with the Bonus DVD as advertised.

The authors encourage their readers to e-mail them with any questions that one may have, but an e-mailed question has gone unanswered for a considerable period of time.

0 of 0 found this review helpful:

This book rocks!, 2008-05-11
Hiroki is the epitome of this book. She so smart! You can any dog really with this book. Hiro knows sit and down within a week! It's a must-have in training. I tell everybody about it. She's very well behaved compared to most dogs her age. People are amazed how much she's learned in such a short period of time.

1 of 1 found this review helpful:

Single Best New Puppy Primer, 2008-04-07
I bought this book a few days after our family brought home a new puppy. I wish I'd bought it a few days BEFORE we got her! I read most of it the first day I bought it and the rest the second day. I started using the tips immediately, and really helped us so much. I had a dog when I was growing up, but haven't raised my own puppy. (I am a mom to two young children, but parenting humans is different!) Some of the puppy training tips are things I just never would have thought of on my own or heard about even from others. As I read the book, I kept thinking, "This is great!" It gives you the tools you need to teach the behaviors you want. This, I can tell, will be my go-to puppy training book for the next two years or so. Basically, it gives you some background chapters to let you know how your dog thinks and why you need to be his/her leader. Then it gives you specific training exercises to do with your dog, starting with beginning level and building from there. It also has chapters on problem areas, house training, etc. It is GREAT! I have read one of the Cesar Millan books, too, and it is useful, but not as practical. This is not just theory and advice, it is actual puppy training lessons for you to use all day every day. It even has photos to illustrate how to do them, which is more necessary than you would think. (Plus, there's the video.) It is really step by step. Would write a more thorough reveiw if I didn't have to go parent kids. Buy this if you have a puppy or are planning to get one!!!!

2 of 2 found this review helpful:

Brace yourself for "product placement"...!, 2008-03-26
I started by reading a good portion of the book, which I found very helpful and informative (the occasional glaring scientific error, as mentioned by another reviewer, notwithstanding). The text raised my expectations for the video - I looked forward to a practical demonstration of the many training "games" that are listed, categorized, and described in the book.

What I found on the video is that those demonstrations *are* forthcoming, if you're patient. But it's kind of like one of those mandatory time-share seminars - you're held captive for a LOT of advertising. That adorable puppy on the cover of the book? Instead of that cute red scarf, he's got a bandanna bearing the all-over imprint of the sponsoring brand of puppy food. So does his collar, his leash, and the big bag of food in the background of nearly every scene. Frequent references are made to how necessary high quality food (gee, we wonder which one) is necessary for the brain development that will make your puppy especially brilliant and trainable. Thinly veiled commercial breaks are frequent, both for the food and for a flea-treatment product (same congolomerate?). The names of these products are never spoken, but the conspicuously-labeled packaging is everywhere. Overall, it made me feel as if these folks assume me to be a whole lot less smart than a puppy.

I still like the book, and I'll probably make it through the whole DVD for the sake of the training demonstrations. But I kind of feel as if the food manufacturer should have offered this set for free with your first purchase of puppy-chow.

Being a naturally contrary sort, I was inspired by all of this to look for a more objective source of food-quality information for my puppy. If you do a web search for "dog food analysis," you'll find a very informative site that helps to clarify food quality issues. And, sad to say, the much-endorsed brand doesn't exactly leave the competition in the dust (to say the least), so now I feel less guilty about being too stubborn to buy it after being subjected to this sales pitch.

I really do like the book though; you can be sure I wouldn't have put aside my annoyance to give it 4 stars, otherwise! It has a lot of helpful insights about how puppies think, where our communications with them often break down, and how to work *with* your puppy to ingrain habits and responses that will be constructive for all concerned.

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