Cocker problems...

[Mike]

Generally that book is quite well received, Barry - if it is the one by Jan Fennell, who also did the tv show of the same name? I meant to buy it a couple of years ago, and it wasnt in stock in the bookshop so I came home with one called The Dog Whisperer - a non-violent approach to dog training. Suffice to say there were of course SOME valuable elements, but it wasnt so good on the practical elements of what to do if your dog exhibits such and such a (problem) behaviour. It was a bit too conceptual for me, even spiritual in some parts - in a dog book!

The information provided in books is a bit static for me, give me an interactive forum like this anyday                    

[Barry Sharpe]

I agree Mike,

I think the books initial chapters were OK. good advice with regards to her 5 rules. But then followed story after story of different dogs and thier problems sure enough she cleared them up but i was left thinking in each of the stories. So how did you do that then? their was huge caps each case study being just a couple of chapters long.

I was not all that impressed with the book, i would have prefered to have seen things like if your dog does this then you should do that. Instead of a brief decription of the problem and then some wishywashy thoughts on how long it took her to stop the dog doing the things it was doing. The thing is the author is persistent in saying throughout the book that the way to handle dogs in the authors fashion took many tiny adjustments in her attidude to that dog, but no where does she record those adjustments. Left me                      

[Jane S]

I wasn't too impressed with "The Dog Whisperer" either - there is some good stuff in there but nothing that can't be found in better books by the likes of John Fisher or Dr Dunbar. I don't like her "one size fits all" approach to everything - training methods that might work well with one breed won't necessarily work well with another but Ms Fennell does not address this in her book. When she did a TV series a while ago on C5, some of the owners confessed afterwards that her methods had not worked for them at all (Border Collie & Westie owners as I recall) The books have been phenomenally successful - a brilliant marketing exercise for all concerned                    

[Mike]

If some of her methods didnt always work but we were lead to believe they did... well, thats a bit of a swizz, isnt it!

I think books such as The Dog Listener only deal with fundamentals - they educate you into understanding a little how a dog may think, and/or how to adjust your own behaviour in order to change your dog's... but if the problem(s) run a little deeper, or other variables are involved (such as differences in breeds) that dont permit their suggested techniques to work, then they wont provide all the answers.

I guess thats proven by the fact that we still felt the need to seek out an informative interactive website such as this one