The Midnight Dog Walkers: Positive Training and Practical Advice for Living With Reactive and Aggressive Dogs Kindle Edition

Finally! All the lessons it took me years to learn in one well-written, instructive book with color pictures! My struggle began almost 8 years ago to try to figure out how to help my reactive German shepherd. How I wish I had this book as a resource. I kept encountering trainers who told me to use a prong collar and correct harder... Even positive trainers seemed ill-equipped; they just told me to use treats to "distract" my dog from her triggers.Phenix explains what it means for a dog to be above threshold and how to use counter-conditioning to unring that bell. She also debunks the myth that walking a dog more will solve the problem. Not true when those uncontrollable triggers encountered on walks push the dog over threshold. She compares it to trying to overcome a fear of black widow spiders. What if, just as you were getting used to seeing a spider at 10 feet away, someone dangled one in your face? Suddenly, 10 feet away doesn't feel safe anymore.Phenix offers alternative ways to stimulate your dog's mind without increasing reactivity. These include nosework games and puzzles.This book makes me cry, I relate to it so much. When my dog kept getting worse on the leash, and then when she bit someone, I felt very much alone. I felt like no one understood what I was going through, and I didn't understand what was wrong with my dog. I'm so glad that other dog owners struggling with the same thing will have this as a resource.

I've been reading this book too try to help my dog that seems to be a hopeless case. I rescued a Shiba Inu that I love but has many of the negative stereotypes associated with the breed,the worst being dog aggression. I figured I could avoid it by just letting her run on our private property and walk at odd hours. The breaking point came when she found the gate not shut properly and launched herself at two innocent dogs being walked by couple front of my house. Fear of lawsuits and putting my dog down forced me to action.I love this author's viewpoint about dog ownership being a commitment, her willingness to share her life story, and also that she is willing to dedicate her life to helping dogs that so many just dump at the pound. I agree with her about clicker training and I've been following closely the first steps for healing and training for my dog. It's too early to say if my dog will ever be able to go out in public and act normally. But with this easy to read book with its great stories, easy instructions, beautiful pictures, I feel dedicated and empowered to try. I am grateful that the author wrote this book and can help save dogs lives that she doesn't even know, including my own loved Shiba.

The Midnight Dog Walkers is a beautiful book intended for the owners of dogs who would be considered reactive or aggressive, especially on leash. It is filled with fantastic, full-color photographs of dogs, dog interactions, and dogs in training. Many great sources are cited for dog owners wishing to learn more about behavioral modification, veterinary care, and training. As a dog trainer who spends a considerable amount of time working with reactive dogs, I found most of the training advice within the book to be accurate, and I believe it will be helpful to dog owners. I appreciate the empathetic tone of the book. The author clearly understands how challenging life is for dog owners living with difficult dogs, and even when these owners make poor choices in their attempts to help their dog, Ms. Phenix shows an understanding of the desperate path that leads to misinformation.The book has great practical information for choosing a breeder, desensitization and counter conditioning protocol, counter conditioning specifically to doorbells, and entertaining/exercising your dog in ways other than taking her for a walk. I loved the suggestions of teaching nose work games, having a "Sniff-a-Thon," and using food puzzles. These are great ways to enrich the quality of a dog's life and increase the human-canine bond.The book reads like a lengthy meandering blog post, so blog readers especially may find it fun. The first 99 pages are nearly autobiographical with frequent anecdotal stories that highlight the challenges dogs and their owners face along with the formal and informal credentials of the author. Stories and points are non-linear, not concise, and often repetitive. The next 100+ pages focus more on providing solutions, but they too are not always linear. For example, Connectivity is talked about on page 139, but no instructions for developing a connection between owner and dog are given until the section called "On Leash Training" more than 30 pages later. There are often nonlinear tangents of great information, like covering how we bore our dogs today under the heading of "Canine Body Language."During the detailed instruction on desensitizing and counter conditioning to the presence of other dogs, the author states that the dog's owner should "ignore barking, lunging, or freaking out from your dog" while continuing to rain chicken from the sky. I thought that the training setup was great and loved that the book was giving some practical advice to modify behavior. However, if the dog is "barking, lunging, or freaking out," the dog is over threshold, and systematic desensitization is not being executed. If the chicken is of high enough value to the dog, the counter conditioning element alone may still work, but there is risk of poisoning the chicken as a reinforcer at worst and being significantly less efficient in modifying behavior at best. It would be better advice (as is given elsewhere in the book) to create more distance between the two dogs to keep the reactive dog under threshold.The last two paragraphs under the heading of "Empathy" were spot on and should be read by all dog trainers and owners. Really, this is the perspective from which living with or training any dog should stem.I liked the honesty of the section regarding medicating dogs for pathological and/or neurological issues, recognizing that sometimes training/behavioral modification alone is not sufficient (or that medication alone is not often sufficient either). When problems start in the brain, the brain needs to be treated, and this sometimes requires medication. I also appreciated that Ms. Phenix got her veterinary advice from veterinary behaviorists well known in the industry, listing them as both a resource to readers and giving credit for the information where it was due.In general, I thought this was a good book, but I was clearly not the intended audience. I would have preferred more practical advice, less self-promotion, and fewer anecdotes and lists of all the challenges dogs and people face. I read this hoping for well laid out solutions to offer clients (which I think make up about 20% of this book), but I found a book that I believe many will consider empathetic to the plight of its readers. This is not a bad thing and may be exactly what many people need--a book to affirm their struggles. I would have preferred something that focused a bit more on training strategies.

Several years ago, my reactive border terrier and I had the good fortune of learning from Annie Phenix, author of The Midnight Dog Walkers: Positive Training . . . . Annie's heart and soul and expertise - along with her gift for teaching - gave us what we needed to leave The Midnight Dog Walkers' Club. Gracie and I are now enjoying agility, rally, walks with other dogs, and leisurely meals on restaurant patios. Imagine! And now, readers everywhere can learn from Annie who has made such a tremendous difference in my life, my dog's life, and hundreds of others'. I HIGHLY RECOMMEND this book: a great read and a great resource for positively affecting the lives of all dogs.

The author demonstrates quite an understanding of the dog, which is why it saddens me that her training is focused on transforming this intelligent social animal into a chicken-focused codependent robot.

This book is very personal, sincere and empathetic. I really enjoyed the stories about author's own dogs and problems they overcame together. If you are looking for particular advices or algorithms, you won't find lots of them in this book.

Very good book but does not fully help solve this problem.

How I recognised so many of the dogs around me! A great book

Great book. Well written with real life examples. Not full of jargon but based on modern scientifically proven techniques.