"Whatever the task, whether keeping a  four-year-old quiet in public, housebreaking a puppy,  coaching a team, or memorizing a poem, it will go  fast, and better, and be more fun, if you know how  to use reinforcement."--Karen  Pryor.

Now Karen Pryor clearly explains the  underlying principles of behavioral training and through  numerous fascinating examples reveals how this art  can be applied to virtually any common situation.  And best of all, she tells how to do it without  yelling threats, force, punishment, guilt trips--or  shooting the dog. 8 methods for putting an end to  all kinds of undesirable behavior. The 10 laws of  "shaping" behavior--for results without strain  or pain through "affection training."  How to combat your own addictions to alcohol,  drugs, cigarettes, overheating or whatever, how to deal  with such difficult problems as a moody spouse, an  impossible teen, or an aged parent. Plus. .  .House training the dog, improving your tennis game,  keeping the cat off the table, and much more!

Don't Shoot the Dog!: The New Art of Teaching and Training

Best book I've ever read. Applications for life as well as dog training. Wish I had read it before I raised kids!

"This book is about how to train anyone -- human or animal, young or old, oneself or others -- to do anything that can and should be done. How to get the cat off the kitchen table or your grandmother to stop nagging you. How to affect behavior in your pets, your kids, your boss, your friends. How to improve your tennis stroke, your golf game, your math skills, your memory. All by using the principles of training with reinforcement."

That first paragraph from the foreword pretty much sums it up. The book is delightful to read. I'm not a behavioral scientist, but it seems like a reasonably thorough introduction to training through reinforcement and shaping. It has helped me better train our dogs, and clarified my understanding of what actually is going on in the training process.

I really like her systematic approach to the material, with definitions and examples. She includes a little background -- the"Clever Hans" phenomenon, the contributions of B.F. Skinner, her own background with marine mammals, the traditional punitive approach to animal training. The book is not exclusively about training dogs; she doesn't address dominance (except as an explanation for the prevalence of punishment in society) or pack psychology. She does clearly explain reinforcers, aversives, markers and the importance of timing, stimulus control, methods ("recipes") vs. principles, variable schedules, behavior chains, successive approximation (shaping), etc. Particularly valuable for me are the rules of thumb about reinforcer size, the "Ten Laws of Shaping," the "Training Game," and the concept of backwards chaining.

Perhaps controversially, the book advocates using operant conditioning to improve the behavior of one's fellow humans. This struck me as manipulative, but I think I'm starting to agree with Pryor. Operant conditioning ultimately is a tool for communicating. There are clearly occasions when it is a more effective and efficient way to communicate than discussion or argument.

I liked this book better than all the other learning theory books. Although she does teach the scientific jargon which is important to know, the author explains learning theory in terms/analagies that the layperson can easily understand.

As a dog trainer this was one of the required reading materials when I first started at Guide Dogs for the Blind. I think it is a good idea to read many different kinds of training guides as I find myself using positive only training methods.

-Julie the online dog trainer from www.webDogTrainer.com

Fantastic. Reading this has helped me gain a bit of insight into relating better with our dog (and people too). For five years I have tried many things to aid in getting our dog to stop pulling while on leash. A Gentle Leader didn't work. A choke collar didn't work. I even resorted to using a Herm Sprenger prong collar, to no avail. After reading this, I realized I needed to "speak" a language my dog could understand. He pulls, I stop. He wants to walk, so he stops pulling. Our walks are quite lovely now, and I didn't need to buy an expensive training aid to accomplish that.