Book dossier

Training dogs

by Konrad Most

About this book Today’s dog trainer can trace the roots of modern training to Training Dogs by Colonel Konard Most. Written in Germany in 1910, Training Dogs influenced how both dogs and trainers were taught in Europe and the United States for the next 50 years! It contains valuable and historically significant information. 21st century trainers and behaviorists will find it amazing to realize that early in the 20th century Konard Most was using and applying behavioral training principles with dogs long before B.F. Skinner! Most also created systematic and scientific method to teach trainers how to train the dog and his “Theory of Training” is a classic in the field. While Most’s methods may be viewed as harsh by modern dog trainers, the theory behind it was revolutionary for it’s time and it still applied today. “We are in luck if, in training a dog, we can use his instincts as a basis for what we require. For the more instinctive an action is, the more reliable it will be.” Konrad Most Here is what today’s dog trainers say about Training Dogs: “Most demonstrated an understanding of operant conditioning concepts such as primary and secondary reinforcement, shaping, fading, and chaining 28 years before the publication of reinforcers. He used his voice and soft tones as secondary inducements, much the way some trainers use clickers today.” Mary R. Burch and Jon S. Bailey, How Dogs Learn 1999 “Although some of Most’s methods seem archaic and harsh in this enlightened age of positive training, some of the theory he set forth was years ahead of its time. Knowing where training came from helps us appreciate where we are today.: Sheila Booth , author of Purely Positive Training and co-author of Schutzhund Obedience Training in Drive. Discover the roots of behavioral training: * Seeing the world from a dog’s point of view. * Utilizing instinctual behavior in training such as the prey drive. * Use of compulsion and inducements. * Use of primary and secondary re enforcers. Learn how Most taught: * Obedience exerises includinng the recall, jumping and retrieving. * Guard and Schutzhund training. * Reconnaissance and tracking; scent theory. * Water work; hunting dog training. * Dogs for the blind.