Before You Get Your Puppy Book

Excellent ideas, especially the encouragement to strongly integrate all kinds of puppy-training into every day life. However, I do think Ian Dunbar is rather unrealistic and terribly discouraging. As I began reading this book, I thought this was IT, the Holy Grail of dog/puppy training. But I quickly realized that with my 9 week old puppy, according to Dunbar, I was already a total failure. Dunbar emphasis error-free house-training (and what new puppy owner wouldn't be excited about THAT concept?), except that this means that once your puppy urinates or poops in the house, EVER, you have now completely destroyed all progress you might ever make with your puppy and are at risk of having to have the dog sent to a shelter where it will be sentenced to death.

Once you decide to just take Dunbar's perfectionism with a grain of salt, it's easy to follow many of his instructions and work extensively with your puppy, when you can, to teach new tricks, to play, to encourage compliance. I found the section on bite-inhibition to be particularly helpful. Dunbar emphasizes that the puppy MUST bite, and that the owner must work toward making it increasingly clear what level of puppy biting, then mouthing, hurts, and will not be tolerated. This is in such stark contrast of other advice I've been given, as a new puppy owner. Our vet immediately grabbed our then 9 week old puppy, said he needed to teach us how to discipline our dog, and gave her an alpha-shake by the scruff of her neck. The Petco dog-trainer-wannabe also pronounced as necessary her version of a "therapeutic grab and hug" by rolling our puppy over on her back, snarling "OFF" at her, while putting her hand in the puppy's mouth, holdng the bottom of the mouth, and shaking her. (Our puppy backed away into a corner by the dog food, and peed on the floor.)

Dunbar encourages making it clear to the puppy what is acceptable in biting/nipping, by shouting "ouch", and stopping play for a minute or so. He does not recommend being highly punitive, and proposes that there is value in the puppy learning, very early, with baby teeth, what is "too much", and how to inhibit force. Dunbar strongly encourages using an entire arsenal of dog toys for chewing to establish acceptable items for chewing and off-limit items. Encouragingly, these methods seem to be working well with our now 12 week old puppy.

Dunbar can be overwhelming, however, making puppy training seem like you might not only need to quit your job, but perhaps hire an entire platoon of servants to help with the work load. (Then again, maybe I'm just now tired, as we enter our 5th week of puppy parenthood.)