Flying Poodles

Karen Pryor’s Newest Book

I am a HUGE fan of Karen Pryor. I subscribe to her clicker training newsletter; I’ve reread Don’t Shoot the Dog! a zillion times; I think clicker training is THE way to train dogs (and people and other mammals). So of course I ordered her newest book, Reaching the Animal Mind: Clicker Training and What It Teaches Us About All Animals, as soon as I could. I waited for months for it to arrive. I started reading it the day it came, and I read it straight through without interruption.

And then I put it aside for two weeks and re-read it again.

I just finished re-reading it a third time, and I still can’t decide what I think of it. It’s full of great anecdotes. It’s a joy to read. I enjoyed reading it all three times, and–like Don’t Shoot the Dog!–I found it immediately changed what I was doing when I was trying to train the dogs.

BUT it just doesn’t seem to be as strong a book as Don’t Shoot the Dog!. Now, Don’t Shoot the Dog! is repetitive to the point where sometimes it’s annoying, and really, it’s pretty simple… but there’s a punch and a verve to the book, and it’s got a HUGE amount of information. You feel like you’re in a class with Karen Pryor, and she doesn’t care how long it takes, she’s going to make you understand how important this is.

In the new book… I guess she assumes you already know how important it is. And I expect she’s right.