Book Recommendation - Please Add your Favorite!

HELP FOR YOUR SHY DOG, by Deborah Wood

I know many of us have dogs that may have come from a reputable breeder, no-so reputable breeder, puppy mills, shelters and rescues and we deal with our shy dog on a daily bases. It’s stressful for us, but even more stressful for them! Can you imagine being afraid of things that most everyone else takes for granted?
One of my dogs (Cooper) was a shelter puppy and suffered from sever shyness. I've been working on this problem for over a year and have finally found a book I feel really deals with the issue. It not only deals with the issue of submissive and shy dogs but also has stories and real HELP on how to train your dog to overcome their shyness.

We know that not all dogs will never completely recover from bad temperament, breeding, neglect or abuse, but this book give some great training exercises and behavior modifications (for them and us) to help the dog become more confident.

The book explores the shy dog coping abilities, dealing with them in public, phobias, submissive urination/defecation, fear-biters and other issues we experience in living with our shy dog. This book covers a wide array of behaviors found in shy dogs.

Some of the tips she uses for PHOBIAS are:
Turn scary things into food dispensers.
Focus you dog on a training exercise.
Play a desensitization tape.
Give your dog a reassuring word (she does NOT advocate babying or enforcing fearfulness. For example, when startled by a loud noise, she uses a “matter of fact” voice and says “It’s just a noise” and goes back to whatever she was doing.
Exposing your dog.
Be matter of fact.
Ignore it. (The example she uses is, if it’s something your dog is very rarely going to encounter, it may be best just to ignore it. In other words, pick your battles.)

She also touches on PHOBIAS created from things such as CRATE abuse and being abused with OBJECTS such as chains, ropes or a leash and how to overcome them.

Finding the right trainer and training class is also discussed and gives you some good tips on how to find the right one for you and your dog.

One thing I found interesting was the chapter on adding a second dog to help “teach” the more shy and submissive dog to be more confident and social. Careful selection must be used in choosing a second dog, but the author feels that with just the right match, it can really boost your shy dog’s social skills and confidence level.

BEFORE I took back my roll as the alpha, Nitro was treating Cooper horribly and it was MY fault! But AFTER reclaiming the roll I never should have been so lazy to relinquish, I can’t begin to tell you how wonderful our household is now! Cooper willingly goes anywhere and will do anything as long as Nitro is there. Very slowly, we’re working towards the day that Cooper will have the confidence to go it alone. More so with shy dogs than a “normal” dog, it takes baby steps and each step accomplish for a shy dog is a BIG ONE!
I HIGHLY recommend this book.

"Fundamentals of Learning and Motivation"
by Frank Logan

"If learning about learning is the key to understanding maladaptive behaviors, it is also one of the keys to solving them..."

This book was for years a required text for college psychology classes. It's basis lies in the results of the many laboratory tests done on varying number of animal species over decades.

The most striking concept revealed is that all animals (man included) follow pretty much the same principals underlying motivation and learning...differences existing primarily in physical attributes and size.

Once the principles are understood, they can be easily applied to dog training:
--Learning is the association of a response with a stimulus.
--Shaping is defined as successive approximations toward a final desired response.
--A Behavior Chain (a sequence of responses) should be learned backwards to be most effective.
--The attractiveness of a stimulus decreases with overexposure
--The longer a reward is delayed, the poorer the performance of a response
--Negative reinforcement responses are as automatic as those from positive reinforcement. However, outcomes will differ: a rat controlled by positive reinforcement (food) displays distinct eagerness when approached by the experimenter, while the rat controlled by negative reinforcement (shock termination) will make distinct efforts to avoid the whole experiment, ie, biting the experimenter."
--Aversion learning (compulsion)has emotional consequences. If one uses adverse controls over another, it is important to be responsive to the other’s efforts to reduce it. Otherwise one may be teaching a persistent sense of helplessness. Even worse, this sense of helplessness carries over into areas that originally were not subject to aversion learning...

The book is not an easy read, and there are no glossy photos...but the information therein is invaluable!

The New Complete German Shepherd Dog
by Jane G. Bennet, Howell House Book

The Proper Care of German Shepherds
by Dr. Carmelo L. Battaglia, TFH

Good Owners, Great Dogs
by Brian Kilcommons w/ Sarah Wilson Warner Books

Schutzhund Theory and Training Methods
by Susan Barwig & Stewart Hilliard, Howell Book House

All About Agility
by Jacqueline O'Neil, Howell Book House

The Common Sense Approach to Fetching a Life with Your Dog
by Adrienne Perry & Jann Cooper, Barker Heeler