Recommended Reading
Visit back often, I only recommend books that I have read... and I am always reading!
"Someone once told me that you can’t learn anything about animals from books. I guess they never read these ones. While developing the skills necessary when working with animals can only be done practically, books are a great way to get other points of view, learn facts and form a knowledge base that is the foundation of your practical ability."

Animal Training Solutions
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The New Complete Poodle Clipping and Grooming Book

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Howell reference books - By Shirlee Kalstone
A must for both professional groomers and poodle owners. A wealth of information for the proper care of both pet and show poodles. A well-organised and easy-to-understand reference.

On Talking Terms with Dogs

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Calming Signals - By Turid Rugaas

Understand your dog!

Norwegian dog trainer Turid Rugaas teaches you to understand and make use of canine body language.

The Complete Dog Book

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By American Kennel Club
The American Kennel Club recognizes 150-some breeds of dogs. Each of those breeds of dog has a "parent club", that is, a group of breeders who have determined what the ideal dog of that breed should look and perform like. These determinations are called "standards." The 150-some breeds that the AKC recognises have their standards listed in full in this book. There is also a short section on canine health, behavior and training.

Pet Lover's Guide to Cat & Dog Skin Disease

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By Karen L. Campbell
This is probably the best book on pet allergies and skin diseases. It contains a lot of scientific information and jargon but isn't too over the top for pet owners that want the nitty gritty details.

Pet First Aid and Disaster Response Guide

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Critical Lessons from Veterinarians - By G. Elaine Acker
The Pet First Aid & Disaster Response Guide is designed to help pet care givers provide temporary, urgent care to pets until they can reach a veterinary or emergency clinic. The text will teach readers how to care for animals before, during, and after an emergency.

Positive Reinforcement

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Training Dogs in the Real World - By Brenda Aloff

Easy to read and understand. Takes you step by step through the techniques for training all those behaviours every dog needs to know.

How Dogs Learn

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Howell reference books - By Mary Burch, Jon Bailey
This book is an introduction to the scientific principles of behaviour & learning. The information is presented in a text book type of approach with good doggy examples. Great for instructors and those wanting a bit more of an understanding of how dog behaviour works.

How to Behave So Your Dog Behaves

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By Sophia Yin
Our behaviour as owners hugely effects our dogs behaviour and becoming conscious of this is a huge step towards being able to say “good dog”.

Excel-Erated Learning

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Explaining in Plain English
How Dogs Learn and How Best to Teach Them
By Pamela J. Reid

Explains the principles of behaviour and learning in plain English. It is an introduction to the science of learning for dog trainers. Not as easy a read but still not too difficult.

My Dog Pulls. What Do I Do?

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By Turid Rugaas
Easy to follow instructions that teach you a kind and effective method for encouraging dogs to walk on leash without pulling.

Canine Body Language - A Photographic Guide

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Interpreting the Native Language of the Domestic Dog
By Brenda Aloff
A great picture anthology of dogs being dogs. This is a very helpful book in that is captures a snapshot of canine emotion to help increase our awareness of dog-dog and dog-human communication.

Dog Language - An Encyclopedia of Canine Behavior

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By Roger Abrantes, Sarah Whitehead, Alice Rasmussen
This book a good reference source of dog language as it is as the title describes encyclopedia and lists behaviours in alphabetical order.

Don't Shoot the Dog!

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The New Art of Teaching and Training
By Karen Pryor
Just one of those must read books. Explains the principles of Operant Conditioning in a wonderfully easy to read entertaining way.

The Culture Clash

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By Jean Donaldson
Jean presents our dogs as they are in this book, giving us a no nonsense approach to understanding and dealing with their behaviour. Excellent!

How to Teach a New Dog Old Tricks

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The Sirius Puppy Training Manual - By Ian Dunbar
An oldie but a goodie! A good, simple approach to introducing reinforcement training to your four legged friend.
We have a lot of things to thank Ian for and this is certainly one of them!

Stress in Dogs

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Learn How Dogs Show Stress and What You Can Do to Help
By Martina Scholz, Clarissa Von Reinhardt
Learn how dogs show stress and what you can do to help.

Barking

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The Sound of a Language
By Turid Rugaas
This is another in the excellent series by Rugaas. I highly recommend it to anyone who has dogs, barking or not.