The Focused Puppy

by Deborah Jones, Judy Keller

A new puppy is a blank slate with endless possibilities. It’s a new beginning that offers you a chance to get it right and not repeat past mistakes. Anyone who has trained a dog before loves that feeling of starting fresh, believing this new puppy will be the best one ever! But a new puppy is also pressure. A new puppy means a major time commitment, not only in how much time you have to spend with him, but in being sure to do all the right things at the right moments. This book integrates the authors’ FOCUS (Fun, Obedience, Consistency, Unbelievable Success) Training System techniques with the developmental stages and specific needs of pups and young dogs. The goal is to help you prepare your puppy to become an excellent companion as well as a potential performance dog. The FOCUSed Puppy presents a variety of foundation exercises for your pup’s first year. The book tells you exactly what skills you should be working on and when. By following each step, you and your puppy will build a wonderfully rewarding relationship that will carry over into everything you do together. And once his foundation skills are set, you can easily take your training in any direction you choose. If you have adopted an older dog, the The Focused Puppy can also be helpful to you. Rather than trying to build on a faulty foundation based on previous or poorly-taught experiences, you can simply start fresh with the FOCUS Training System. Start out on the right track with your dog and build his foundation skills at the right time in the right order. And enjoy the process; you’re about to embark on an amazing learning experience! The Focused Puppy includes over 280 full color photos.

Genres: Dogs, Nonfiction

207 pages, Paperback

Published January 1, 2011

Reviews

[Katherine · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really great information!

The books is set up chronologically for puppy developement phases, but I found it important to read the later chapters up front. There was content at the end that applies to early stages and it illuminates the goals behind some of the early exercises.

A little more guidance would be helpful to distinguish what skills/exercises are important for companion dogs compared to competition dogs. For example, the book instructs you to teach the puppy that it should not leave an open-door crate until a verbal release cue is given. That seems unnecessarily-complicated for a pet, even though the general self-control exercises are generally-applicable.

[Steph · Rating 5 out of 5]

I've nearly always had a dog in the house growing up, but as the first puppy I'll be a primary owner/trainer for gets ready to come home, I wanted a good guide to make me feel a little less overwhelmed! The Focused Puppy uses a simple clicker system (which I was already familiar with) and breaks training down into simple exercises geared to various age milestones for a puppy's first year. It's concise and easy to understand, and I'm very excited to start putting what I've learned to good use with a puppy that I already know is very clever.

[Polly Callahan]

recommended by Summer Oaks breeder

[Caitlyn Zepeda · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an excellent guide to puppy training, and applicable to any newly adopted adult dog as well

[Louise · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book is tailored more towards the novice trainer. It is well structured with detailed descriptions of the exercises but uses more luring than I prefer, and I didn't always like their variations on the common exercises dog sport people tend to play. But for someone fairly new to dog training, this is a wonderful resource.

[Maria Kemplin · Rating 3 out of 5]

In my first reading I enjoyed this book much more than the second reading, where I found it to be a little choppy in sequence and not as helpful in terms of performance training as one would expect for the title.