Thursday, November 25, 2010

Book 9: Through a Dog's Eyes

I'm breaking the 'rules of blogging' by doing so many of them. But they're accumulating faster than I'm putting them up. It's time to get it over with! I still have a few more. But three is enough for today....


This is a really interesting book in many ways. The author runs a service dog program and has a ton of dog knowledge. The book looks at various dog topics and has a training section at the very end. There are chapters on dog senses, training, domestication, etc. And a lot about her program and how it started. Those stories are exceptionally amazing and definitely could (and should!) be a book of their own.

It was very encouraging to see someone involved with a service dog program to be so supportive of positive dog training. She very plainly stated that was how the program now operates and she wrote many vocal comments against punishment in training.

Despite citing many journal articles and good sources, there were many places where it just seemed like there was not a complete understanding of the topic or the ‘sciency-ness’ of things. Some studies she used to support her ideas, weren’t all that convincing once I thought about. The writing style had quite a few editing errors that made me have to re-read sections. There were two words she used, adding “ology” at the end and it wasn’t for any words that typically have ology at the end. Babyology? Not a real word.

That said, it wasn’t horrible, but it’s not something I will likely be citing or referencing to. I don’t know that it’s the best book for a non person to read to learn about dogs either. However, I DO hope she writes a book specifically about her service dog program and those stories. Those were the best parts of the book.

1 comment:

Kristine said...

Thanks for this review. I'm always looking for new theories on dog behaviour and variations on popular training methods. This book sounds like it hassomething new to offer, especially coming from a service dog mindset. I may have to check it out, despite some of the reservations you mentioned.