Listening to Dogs: How to be Your Own Training Guru by Jon Katz
Years ago trainers recommended establishing pack order when working with our dogs. A few went so far as to have the alpha family member mark boundaries with his/her urine. Later a friendlier form of training, positive behavior reinforcement seemed effective yet gentler. So many variations exist today that first-time dog owners become confused and clueless. Author Jon Katz offers a different perspective in his book, Listening to Dogs: How to be Your Own Training Guru. This isn’t exactly a dog training book, it’s not something I would recommend for a first-time dog owner, but he does provide something for reflection.
Katz and I have a love/hate relationship -- he doesn't know this.
| My relationship with Katz’s books has been a love/hate bond. I read everything he writes including a few books I treasure and a couple I’d prefer to fling across the room in protest. In Listening to Dogs Katz doesn’t pretend to be a trainer or a guru, he claims he avoids questions on how he trains his dogs, he suggests that what works for his dogs on his farm probably won’t work for you and your dog in your house/yard/apartment. He suggests that trainers such as Cesar Millan know how to work with their dogs in given situations but when dog owners attempt his methods they frequently fail -- and then assume they’re incapable of training their dogs. Most of the books seem to have “little to do with the lives of most dog lovers and owners” – another reason they search for mystical dog-training gurus. |
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| Generation one was a great dog, but... |
Katz states that “dog training has been one of the most profound spiritual experiences of my life. It is not, for me, an exercise in authority, a matter of technique, a rigid theory that smothers thinking, individuality, and the very personal nature of our relationships with these animals.” It is my interpretation based upon reading this book and all of his previous books
