One of the best by an author I respect. I also have his book on choosing a dog. This man is knowledgable and for the most part, his hints on dog behavior and how to correct it, is reliable and helpful.

Enjoyed the guidance and insight into the psychology of learning from the dogs point of view. It immediately had positive effect upon my training and my dog's retention.

Wish there had been more emphasis and detail on training techniques as the author seemed to generalize alot.

I bought this book 13 years ago when I adopted my golden retriever and I used the information in this book to build a healthy, loving and harmonious relationship with my dog.

This book gave me solutions during the tough stage when my sweet-eyed puppy developed the infuriating habit of chewing up artwork and sentimental keepsakes in my home and it gave me the tools I needed to understand and train my dog.

My golden was known for being "mannerly" and well trained and I give a lot of credit to "Good Owners, Great Dogs."

I said goodbye to my golden earlier this year and will be adopting a new dog from the Humane Society this week. I had to find a new copy of this book, too, because someone forgot to return it after borrowing it (tsk, tsk)! I am so happy to see it is still in print!!!

What I love about this book is the step by step instructions on how to train a dog. Kilcommons tells you exactly what you are supposed to do and then shows you with pictures (sadly black and white). He also offers several different methods of training one command. Because of this, Good Owners Great Dogs is a valuable resource to have. He also takes a no nonsense approach for establishing control of your dog.

The only drawback to this book is the training methods are very physcial (but not cruel). For most dogs, training that uses treats to guide dogs into position (which he does cover a little bit for some commands) results in the dog learning much quicker. However, it is very helpful to see the different options available.

Kilcommons also uses the Woodhouse training collar (not a choke collar) and quick "corrections" to enforce commands. While this is still a humane method, I believe there are better tools now that can be used instead. One great invention is the Haltee or Gentle Leader which allows you to have control over the dogs head movements and allows much much easier control of boistorous large dogs without a lot of effort.

Overall, I reccomend this book but to be used along side a positive reinforcement approach of which there are many many books.