Hello, I'm trying to find a good book on clicker training to help me with my puppy. I already have Karen Pryor's Don't Shoot The Dog. If possible, I'm after a book that will help me work on getting and maintaining my dog's attention.

My 6-month-old puppy is obsessed with other dogs, if there's another dog around he goes into a world of his own and there's no reaching him until the dog is out of sight. Is there any way that clicker training could help me to get his focus in this kind of situation? He's really rowdy at the moment, lunging to try to get to the dog, ignoring everything else. Being a Rhodesian Ridgeback, he's getting bigger and stronger by the day, so it would be massively helpful if I could find a way to get him to calm down and exercise some restraint when there are other dogs nearby.

Thanks in advance.

I work with a number of dogs who are similar...some are just OTT around other dogs and some are dog-dog reactive. Clicker training is a very good method to get started on gaining more focus from your dog. I don't own any books but this is the set of stages I use:

1) As soon as your dog looks another, click and pop a high-value treat in their mouth (cheese, sausage, ham etc.). Do this until, whenever you click, he looks up at you and expects a treat then...
2) As soon as your dog looks at another or offers any calm behaviour around other dogs, click and wait for him to look at you- then treat.
3) When stage 2 is being performed consistently, wait for your dog to look at you voluntarily when another dog appears, then click and treat (this is a hard stage to get to!)
4) Remove the clicker and just treat him when he looks up at you, perhaps bring in a 'watch me' command, or somthing similar
5) Phase out the treats, i.e. only treat one in two times he pays attention to you, then one in three, one in four etc. This will soon become part of his behaviour and he will become less focused on other dogs.

This builds a positive association with other dogs and means your dog will be rewarded for looking at you or displaying calm behaviour. You can even click and treat when your dog meets another and is polite and well-mannered.

Click for Joy by Melissa Alexander is excellent and for teaching focus Control Unleashed by Leslie McDevitt is brilliant.

You want to work on this pretty urgently so that this doesn't develop in to reactivity than it already has.

If he can't focus on you than he is over threshold and too aroused so learning won't really happen; insteaad he is developing frustration on leash which is not good.

You need to work at keeping a distance that your puppy is able to be distracted by you. Then take one step forward and if don't move forward again toward other dog until he is calm again.

Teach eye contact or other focus behaviours in low distraction situations and gradually work to increase the distraction level.

But the key is to only allow him access to rewards (in this case distractions) when calm. It will take some time but is essential.

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Anne, owned by Rufus & Tripod

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Thanks for those recommendations, I'll be looking into them.

Just wanted to say thanks so much for this recommendation, book arrived a few days ago and I've started reading - I think it's going to be a big help, and I love her whole approach to dogs, in particular, taking things at the dog's pace instead of working against what the individual dog's capable of at that time.

Great, it really is an amazing book. For individual exercises I also like Click to Calm by Emma Parsons but I love CU for an overall understanding of arousal and calming difficulties in dogs.

Best of luck, also there are lots of CU classes in the UK and US so you might have some luck tracking one down when you have read the book.

__________________
Anne, owned by Rufus & Tripod

Pet Central site & blog
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"I've seen a look in dogs' eyes, a quickly vanishing look of amazed contempt, and I am convinced that basically dogs think humans are nuts." - John Steinbeck

"If you don't want your dog to bite you, don't be an a**hole to him." ~ Dr. Ian Dunbar

Rather than a book, I'd go for a video (several out there on YouTube, Sofia Yin for a start), or preferably a demonstration by a trainer. The timing has to be precise, so getting feedback from someone who knows what they are doing is good to let you know when you're doing it right or getting the timing wrong.