Sixteen years ago, Karen Pryor’s paradigm-shifting paperback book, “Don’t Shoot The Dog,” made an unobtrusive entrance into the dog training world, drilling the first noticeable hole in the massive dike of traditional, force-based training. Over the years, dog owners and trainers with positive training philosophies thirsted for more information. The response was a maddeningly slow trickle of books and videos, most notably from Ian Dunbar, Karen Pryor, and Gary Wilkes. By the time Jean Donaldson’s landmark book The Culture Clash hit the presses in 1996, the trickle had grown to a steady stream.
In 1999, the dike burst. Positive trainers are being swept into the year 2000 on a virtual flood of books and videos that promote the modern, scientific and humane principles of positive reinforcement. It was with great pleasure that we reviewed a large selection of new releases and found none for our “Not Recommended” category. So turn on the video and the reading lamp and let yourself be swept away with your selections from the following great list while you wait for the spring thaw.
