Colleen Pelar’s other book, Living with Kids and Dogs without Loosing Your Mind is something I recommend to almost every family I see that has kids. This new Puppy Training for Kids book will now also be recommended in the households with elementary and middle school kids.
The dogs with one of their young friends!
It’s a good length and has a lot of information for parents and kids. The photos are adorable (young kids and young puppies!). There are chapters on happy visits to the vet, socialization, house training, body language, basic training, and trick training. The photos all display good training skills and it’s impressive to see the variety of kids and puppies working together.
One of my favorite parts was the body language section. Pages 44 and 45 in the body language section have a “Body Language Experiment” with several descriptions corresponding with photos. “Close your mouth. Make your eyes wide and look to the side.” After trying each part, the kids can think about how they feel and an answer key at the bottom describe the emotion those postures were meant to create. (Answer for that one: “Worried”). This might be something I add to some of my classes, even for adults! Being able to associate specific body language with emotions may help some clients be better able to see how their dogs are likely feeling.
There are a few places where training steps seem not quite so realistic, such as going from really basic stays to staying while the dishwasher is unloaded…but bonus points for making household tasks part of training! There is a lot of luring/prompting with food without direct mention of how to fade that prompt (really, a minor issue in the big picture when it’s young kids handling dogs).
I definitely appreciate all the safety tips and how carefully the author worked these in. There are text boxes throughout the book that are specifically oriented towards parents. One of my favorites is the one discussing when it’s appropriate or not to have a child walk the dog on his own. Many kid-dog books overlook some of the basic but really important safety points. This one does not!
Again, definitely a good book for kids and it’s at the top of my list for young dog owners with a new dog!