I enjoy watching Mary Ray perform. I’ve been watching her performances at Crufts for as long as video has readily been available online. To get such consistent and reliable performances from not just one dog, but sometimes up to four at a time (skip ahead to 2:00 on that one to get to the multiple dogs!), it’s just amazing.
She’s written a number of books on tricks and basic training. This one has been readily available here for the last few years.
It’s a little disapointing…. the steps are very basic and simplified, not detailed enough for the true complexity of the behaviors. There’s a lot of lumping and less elegant training. I’d be very surprised if this is the way Mary Ray typically trains most of the behaviors. From my experience, most dogs need more in-between steps, but most trick books like this want to only list a few steps and make it seem really easy.
On the other hand, it’s positive training, it’s beautifully laid out, and the pictures are excellent. It’s probably the sort of thing that would be great for a kid and inspiring (if they didn’t get too frustrated trying to literally follow it and get the exact same results.