The Practical Dog Listener

If dog owners up and down the land were heaving huge sighs of relief when Jane Fennell's first book on tackling canine behaviour hit the shelves, they will be building shrines to her for years to come after reading her follow up, The Practical Dog Listener. While The Dog Listener proved to be a fascinating anecdotal study of the various behavioural patterns of man's best friend, many found it lacking in simple hands-on advice. This new volume thankfully corrects that and offers plenty of sound, sensible advice on training dogs in the simplest of tasks, such as walking to heel or sitting on command to more advance techniques such as curbing the over-zealous greeting of guests or introducing new animals to the house. Her style does not involve force, or raising the voice and is more about understanding what it is your dog is trying to tell you and acting accordingly, rather than forcing it to lose instinctive and in-built behavioural traits. The advice is clear, simple and easy to follow and does produce some incredible results--if you have the patience (and if you don't you really shouldn't own a dog in the first place). This is a perfect book for those who have owned a dog all their lives, or for people thinking about taking a dog into their home. In years to come it will still be regarded as an essential dog owner's manual and your pooch will be as glad that you invested in it as you will be. --Jon Weir

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think like your dog and not ask him to think like you - Rated
Well what can i say about Jan Fennell that we dont already know, anyone who cant look at their dog in a different way after reading her books shouldn't be owning a dog at all. This technique of hers is unique and is a total and complete way of turning us into a dog (in the eyes of a dog) and i truely hope dog owners read any of her books to help our best friends live a settled and more fulfilling life in this alien human world they live in because WE now understand them ! A must for anyone who wants to understand why dogs do what they do , they arn't wrong unfortunatley we the most inteligent species on earth are the ones that get it wrong. A lovely book as with all her books

Practical ????? - Rated
I was somewhat fooled by the title, expecting this book to be a practical guide. However, like the other reviewers, I found it to be more a collection of annecdotes. In addition, much of the book deals with packs rather than individual dogs. Desperately trying to adopt the methods suggested, I found myself interacting less and less with my dog and to be fair I didn't get a dog so I could spend my time ignoring it.

Although put forward as a natural, non-violent means of training a dog, the Dog Listener approach seems to rely on mental rather than physical domination. Fearing I was misinterpreting the approach I contacted one of the Dog Listeners on Jan's web site, who seemed to be saying that I wasn't ignoring the dog enough!!! Some very, very, good points in the book, but not enough practical advice, too many case histories and too much focus on packs.

This book is possibly of more use to those who have just got, or are about to get a puppy. The book doesn't address the common behavioural problems that caused me to buy the book in the first place.

Maybe a Little Too Informative - Rated
Overall, this is a well written book. However, during reading, you may not be able to help getting a little frustrated at being constantly referred to past cases. Whilst I can appreciate the value of reading about possibly "similar" cases, it is inevitable that the experience would mean more to the author than to us readers.

We readers can't possibly imagine the full scale of the issues which Jan is describing for the specific dog, as she will have the full mental picture, and the full experience. We don't. We are, instead, reliant on a textual description. It just doesn't translate that well, and I personally, ended up almost silently shouting in my head "Stop! I'm not interested in Mrs. Brown's dog who had similar but not really that similar problems to that of my own dog's.".

My main objection to the book, again related to the case-studies, is that if you took out the case-studies, you can quickly realise why they are there. Without them, there is actually very little to the book in terms of practical methodology.

With all the above said, it would be foolish to suggest that there is nothing to be learned from this book. There are interesting snippets of dog behaviour psychology and training methods, but you really have to want to find them amidst the past-case studies. It's one of those books which, ideally, you need to go through with a highlight marker, and highlight only the instructional parts. (Actually, not an easy task as it tends to interweave between practical exercise and the infernally frustrating "Let me tell you about Benji, the dog which..." case studies.)

Having read it, would I buy it? Probably not. Not because it's not well-written, it is. But because it actually contains very little information which is of much value to anyone other than the author. I'm going to purchase the first in the series "The Dog Listener", which I am assured is a tad more informative.

There are better books out there - Rated
I am training to become a dog behaviourist and read this book when I was starting out. Having spoken to a lot of recognised behaviourists (including a founding member of the Association of Pet Behaviour Counsellors) I have learned that Jan Fennel's methods aren't particularly helpful - pack theory just doesn't work because dogs aren't wolves anymore. You wouldn't look at chimpanzees to find the best way to bring up your children I hope, so why look at wolves to see how dogs behave? I even paid for one of Jan Fennel's associates to come and help me with my dogs and her methods didn't work at all.

If you truly want to understand dog behaviour read books such as The Culture Clash by Jean Donaldson, any of Ian Dunbar's books and John Fisher's 'Diary of a Dotty Dog Doctor'.

Good addittion to the dvd + original dog listener book - Rated
I bought this book after watching the Jan fennell dvd( which I would recommend you watch, before reading the books, so you can see the evidence before your eyes.)and also after watching the dog listener book, which I also recommend you read before buying this book.
I would recommend this book to owners who have more than 1 dog as she gives extra advice to dealing with 'packs' and ' the sorting out of top dog scenarios that can happen in such cases,that are not in her other books.
It was a good read and I am about to buy it for someone else too but it was not as informative or as interesting the original book and dvd.
It also has less information due to large print and colour photos but some people might prefer that.
over all - a good extra but if I bought that one first, I would not hvae been inspired , like I was with her other books and dvd , but definitely helpful in my situation with 4 dogs.