Before & After Getting Your Puppy

This friendly guide shows you how to select the right training method for your dog, based on his unique personality, to reach your desired goals. Whether you want to teach Buddy to sit or master retrieving, you'll get expert training tips and techniques for you and your dog — to ensure a mutually respectful relationship with your four-legged friend.

• Concentrate on canines — discover why your dog acts the way she does, understand her nutritional needs, and ready yourself for the task of training your dog

• Prep for your pup — prepare your home for your puppy's arrival, discover the importance of socialization, and get started on housetraining

• Put your best paw forward — teach basic commands like Sit, Stay, and Down, and get the scoop on how to deal with doggie don'ts like chewing, digging, and excessive barking

• Take training to the next level — get involved in organized dog activities and competitions, where you'll both show off impressive tricks like retrieving, figure 8s, and much more

Open the book and find:

• Step-by-step instructions for teaching your dog basic commands

• Helpful advice on crate training

• Safe ways to address aggression and separation anxiety

• Tips for teaching Buddy to behave himself around people and other dogs

• Techniques to keep your senior dog feeling young

• Health issues that can interfere with training

• Experts to turn to for training help

Learn to:

• Use positive reinforcement as an effective teaching tool

• Select the gear you need for training success

• Teach the basics including Sit, Stay, and Down

• Eliminate unwanted behavior

At long last, dogs will know just how smart their owners can be. By unlocking the secrets of the hidden language of dogs, psychologist Stanley Coren allows us into the doggy dialogue, or "Doggish," and makes effective

communication a reality.

Drawing on substantial research in animal behavior, evolutionary biology, and years of personal experience, Coren demonstrates that the average house dog can understand language at about the level of a two-year-old human. While actual conversation of the sort Lassie seemed capable of in Hollywood mythmaking remains forever out of reach, Coren shows us that a great deal of real communication is possible beyond the giving and obeying of commands.

How to Speak Dog not only provides the sounds, words, actions, and move-ments with which we can effectively communicate with our dogs, but also deciphers the signs that our dogs give to us. With easy-to-follow tips on how humans can mimic the language dogs use to talk with one another, original drawings illustrating the subtleties of their body language, and a handy visual glossary and "Doggish" phrasebook, How to Speak Dog gives dog lovers the skills they need to improve their relationships with their pets.