Control Unleashed: Creating a Focused and Confident Dog

by Leslie McDevitt

From the back cover:

Leslie McDevitt's versatile Control Unleashed program is designed to help 'dogs with issues' learn how to relax, focus, and work off leash reliably in either stimulating or stressful situations."

Genres: Dogs, Nonfiction, Animals, Self Help, Unfinished

226 pages

First published January 1, 2007

Reviews

[Leanna Aker · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book gives a good academic background and case studies of how focus games and conditioning exercises can create a focused and confident dog. This would be an excellent book for dog trainers looking to start a Control Unleashed class. Control Unleashed is geared toward pet performance dogs and their owners. However, the principles in the book could be applied to family pets as well. A good rationale is given for each exercise, in terms of learning theory and practical understanding.

Having said that, I found this book frustrating for several reasons. First of all, the book is poorly laid out, if what you want is a bank of ideas for helping your dog. It is arranged temporally, based on how the author would conduct her classes. While this might seem like a logical layout, that's not how my brain functions. There is a table of contents you can look up the activities in, but I think I would have benefitted from a short cheat sheet of games/exercise organized by purpose.

The second reason I found the book frustrating was because for 75-80% of the activities in it, you really need the structure and resources in a class.....they are exercises you could not create for your dog on a regular basis without countless strange dogs (for which you magically knew their temperament) and highly compliant owners that you could tell exactly what to do. I have a reactive border collie that is fine with known dogs, but reactive with unknown dogs while he is on leash. For the "There's a Dog in Your Face" game, I would need to be able to have a number of dog/owner teams available for multiple repetitions to run up to my dog behind a barrier in a very specific way. While I do not doubt that strategy would work, I'm in no place to set up such interactions on a regular basis.

There are some general good pointers that I was reminded about by reading this book, and one or two strategies I would try. I do think there were some valuable case studies and messages about reading dog body language that would benefit many readers. The book fell short of my expectations, though, given how many dog trainer/behaviorist/friends I have who tout the wonders of the methods within.

[William Stavers · Rating 5 out of 5]

As a dog trainer in Los Angeles for 26 years, I've read many dog training books. Out of all the books about dog training that are published each year, few make an original contribution to the field.

Thus, it makes sense that this sensitive, discerning, moving book, comes from an author who holds a Master of Liberal Arts from the University of Pennsylvania where she combined studies in Creative Writing, Folklore, and Cultural Anthropology. Also, Leslie worked with children as a museum educator, environmental educator, and humane educator. Her work with "at-risk" kids, (you won't get 'buy-in' by ordering them around) and playing in a couple Irish bands helped develop her sense of teamwork, timing and rhythm; which have been great assests in her work with dogs and allowed her to create a unique perspective on the emotional and mental life of dogs.

Well organized, Control Unleashed is generous and helpful regardless of your interest in why and how dogs behave. I recommend anyone who has a interest in or works with dogs read this perceptive and original book.
Available from Dogwise

[Shaya · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved this book. The whole book is about reframing how you work with your dog, specifically in agility classes.

I have started using some of her techniques with my distracted, reactive dog and after a few days of me focusing on connecting with him and raising my rate of reinforcement there is a noticeable difference. He makes eye contact throughout the day and stays more tuned in. Training has become more fun and less of a "I need to get in a training session so I'll be ready for class next week."

Leslie McDevitt's emphasis on the dog human relationship instead of just how many ribbons you can win is really refreshing. As are messages that it's more important to help your dog be comfortable than for them to learn an agility command or how to do something.

Her "Look at That!" game seems particularly creative. What a great way to "reframe" a reactivity cycle than to train glancing at the stimulus more as a trick?

I really like all of her little inserted stories, especially those about her dog Snap.

The book made me want to jump up and either train or go to a seminar or training class with her if she lived closer.

[Bianca · Rating 5 out of 5]

I wish I'd had this book when I first started agility with my dog Katie. McDevitt offers tons of exercises that are fun to try with your dog and that really work. And her "program" is really about teamwork--less you "controlling" your dog than helping your dog learn to work with you. This book is available at www.dogwise.com.

[Nadeen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Reading this now. I feel like a light bulb has just gone on.

[Dita · Rating 5 out of 5]

Lots of great ideas! Thanks Leslie McDevitt.

[Debi · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a pretty amazing book. Intense. I'm currently working with the author as well as reading the book, attending a weekly class that she is teaching. The class is going very slowly covering only the earliest lessons outlined in the book. I'm glad to have the book so that I'll be able to take these training methods further once the class is over.

[jay · Rating 4 out of 5]

The exercises in this book are absolutely invaluable for those of us living with reactive dogs. I only wish that were more of its focus, instead of appearing to be an agility book that *happens* to be useful for reactivity.

[Abby · Rating 5 out of 5]

Just as great the second time around!

First read: 24 July 2012

Of the 60 dog books I've read in the past year, this training manual has to be one of my favorites. Leslie McDevitt has gained much well-deserved respect and attention for this book, which aims to help reactive dogs focus in agility. But the training applications extend far beyond the agility course. McDevitt's sensible, clear training regimen is a godsend for any guardian of an easily distracted, shy, or stressed dog. What I particularly loved is that I haven't read these training tips a million times from other sources; McDevitt is creative and practical, and her CU games will be ones that you'll want to teach to your dog right away! I'm looking forward to continuing to work through this book with our shy 1-year-old German shepherd. I have already seen progress in her and in my relationship with her since reading this book. Highly recommended to all dog owners who want to engage and train on a deeper level.

[Kelley · Rating 5 out of 5]

I wish I had read this book a year ago. But better late than never. It gives great training tips and really goes against some theories that don't work for specific issues. I will definitely look into more of her books and recommendations. I would love to find a trainer that does a CU class or something like it.
I borrowed this book from my agility club, but may have to buy my own copy because it's worth to have for reference

[Sanne · Rating 2 out of 5]

Too many anecdotes and side stories for fairly basic exercises. I was recommended this book as being super helpful with lots of good games and activities.. and I'm always willing to learn new ones. But I found most pretty basic and made into a big thing when it could've probably been explained much shorter with less stories in between.
I skipped a lot of pages to try and get to the actual games and activities.

[Robert · Rating 2 out of 5]

Is it so hard to write a unisex book? It’s about dogs... there is absolutely no reason to assume all of your readers are female.

[Natasha Chilton · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book had it's good points and its weird. But I still enjoyed it. I'm currently using the Look at That! game with my reactive Golden, my 2 year old Service Dog and my 13 week old Service/Sport prospect and they're loving it! I'm also trying it out with a couple board and trains I'm working with and finding its helping them as well!
I was a little put off at first in Chapter 3 with the "Being Present" thing. To me it just sounded way too "Connect with your dog on a spiritual level" and was really weird. If it works for some people, great! But I thought it was weird 😅 And the second about massaging your dog, absolutely agree! Definitely massage your pup, it helps them relax. Kay. But the part about massaging a cropped ear or docked tail as if it's still there...tad bit weird. Why are we massaging air? That's not gonna help them relax🤨
But other than that, I enjoyed this book and will be incorporating some of these games with my own dogs and client dogs!

[Marcella Wigg · Rating 5 out of 5]

All three of the books in this series are the most helpful dog training books I've found out of the dozen-odd I've purchased. It's a shame they haven't been reprinted recently. If you're going to get one though, get this one, because Reactive to Relaxed is a much less thorough supplement.

My favorite thing about McDevitt is that she has very concrete and actionable ideas and pattern games to improve your dog's focus and training, so you're not stuck thinking, "Yes, I understand that I need to teach my dog to tune out distractions in public, but how do I do that in reality?" Her pattern games and suggestions for mat training and loose-leash walking have been very helpful, and there are many creative suggestionsfor switching things up to entertain your dog, such as allowing the dog a choice in the activity you are doing.

[Kasi · Rating 4 out of 5]

Though this book was written for handlers who wish to pursue agility with their dogs, there was still a wealth of valuable information for all dog owners. The “Look at That” and “Give Me A Break” exercises are things that I will definitely try with my own dog. Additionally, I can’t wait to learn more about the passive attention exercises (TTouch, massage, shaping relaxed behavior) that McDevitt talked about in the book.

All in all, the author is brilliant and I definitely muttered, “That is genuis!” under my breath multiple times as I read.

[Nadia · Rating 5 out of 5]

Absolutely fantastic book for any dog trainer or owner, though it is geared towards professional trainers. I'm going to need more than one read to really assimilate the wealth of information but I'll be happy to do it. Excellent science-based ethical dog training for dogs who struggle with fear, over-arousal, lack of focus... all sorts! Helpful anecdotes to illustrate the lessons being given and great photos. Highly recommend to anyone training any number of dogs.

[Alex Writz · Rating 5 out of 5]

I can't begin to thank Leslie enough for writing this book (and the rest she's continued to write). Her insight helped me with my own dogs, and set me down a path of wanting to learn and work with behavior that has led me to being a professional dog trainer today. Her games and exercises are real life applicable and fun for dogs and owners alike, all while enacting true changes in behavior.

[Stephanie Hunter · Rating 1 out of 5]

I bought this at Crufts, as it had been recommended by a trainer friend, and I recognised that my boy and I could be doing more on his focus work.

I am not sure if it is just the style (I find it to be very self-aggrandising) or the target audience (other professional dog trainers) who inherently know the "games" the author talks about with little instruction on the mechanics (and also difficult to replicate outside of a class environment), but I could not get on with this book. It has been abandoned in favour of Denise Fenzi's series, which I have found much more accessible.

[Taylor]

Very helpful, interesting book. Great exercises and ways to write out exercises.

[Scarlett · Rating 3 out of 5]

The book has great ideas and simple explanations behind them but unfortunately plenty of the exercises are too hard to replicate outside of a classroom context.

[Joanne Jones · Rating 3 out of 5]

There were great ideas that I will try, but I found the book difficult to follow. I only wish I could take a CU class.

[Maria · Rating 2 out of 5]

I love control unleashed pattern games, however this book was written in a very messy way and with lots of fillers

[Sums☕️💛 · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is perfect for those wanting to start agility classes. There was also great information that was helpful to the standard dog owner too which I enjoyed reading 🫶🏼

[Moriah · Rating 4 out of 5]

More technical than the “part 2” book, but good nonetheless to learn technique.

[Karen · Rating 4 out of 5]

I would give this book 3.5 stars if the option was available. I had very high expectations for this book based on other people's recommendations, but unfortunately it didn't live up to them for me.

I bought the book hoping to find some good advice for working with my very highly driven, motivated younger dog who has too much uncontrolled enthusiasm for agility. The description of the book makes it sound perfect for him. In fact, I found the book offered a lot more advice for my older dog whose stresses and worries made focusing on agility difficult for him. If you have that sort of dog this book is great. I can vouch for the effectiveness of the 'have a sniff' and 'look at that dog' games, because I already knew about them before reading this book. I can't remember where I learnt about these techniques - I suspect a combination of Emma Parson's Click to Calm, Susan Garrett's Crate Games, and Dawn Weaver's Knowledge Equals Speed. A lot of the other techniques in the book have a heavy reliance on ring gates. As a British agility competitor I had to Google Image what one was as we don't use them here! It does mean the exercises are something you will struggle to work on without space, ring gates, and cooperative stooge dogs.

I did pick up some useful points for my over-enthusiastic dog. When warming him up I will make greater use of massage. Currently when warming my dog up I do lots of exciting tricks to hype him up to get him ready to run agility, and then struggle to keep my hyped up dog calm in the queue - this is obviously silly. My heart was in the right place - I want to make sure I warm my dog up so he doesn't injure himself! Nevertheless, lesson learned. Massage and on-off switch games for us. I also liked the point about rewarding your dog for reorienting to you. I already do this when my dog exits his crate, but I realise now that are other situations to reward his behaviour such as when being unclipped from the lead to run agility.

Throughout the book also emphasises the importance of working your dog sub-threshold, and increasing the rate of reinforcement whenever you increase the difficulty of an exercise. These are good take home messages for anyone to remember. The point was made that many people do not use a high enough rate of reinforcement. This is a fact that has previously stood out to me when watching Youtube videos of Silvia Trkman training, because she uses an incredibly high reinforcement rate. Which reminds me, this may not be the best dog training book for those not already familiar with terms such as 'rate of reinforcement' and 'jackpot reward'.

So overall some very good, if not entirely ground-breaking, information for helping stressed dogs that have a habit of going of sniffing, being selectively deaf, or running at half the speed that they do in training.

[ThDogs · Rating 5 out of 5]

I think it is important to remember while reading this that it is written for the niche audience of agility trainers and behavioural modification trainers. It is not really written for the owner of a dog. It is, by extension, a very dense and technical book with a lot of assumed knowledge. I like dense and technical books.

It makes for a very interesting insight of all the management in a good training class. I wish more classes were run with the thought that is described within.

Everything is explained in detail and built around topics of helping a dog compete in dog sports happily, especially on demotivated/disengaged dogs and over excited dogs.

There is a LOT of detail and very few summaries. Lots of case studies of different types of clients and how the author responded to their different issues and how the author adjusted the games within for each.

Despite loving detail I did get a bit tired of the case studies and jargon, but I suspect that’s because as a competitor but not a class trainer, I am not the target audience. The case studies were engaging and drew me in every time, I just found it a bit repetitive after awhile.

My favourite games out of this book are the Give Me. A Break (reminds me of Attention Please and some games in Predation Substitute Training) and all the creative uses of mats. I dusted off my mats to put in the car.

I would have liked some one page summaries of each of the exercises. The kind you can hand out in class for people to refer to, or refer to yourself. Perhaps a pocket book of just the exercises. Online there are lots of these but the layout of the games seems different to what was in this book. I suspect they are the sister games from the reactivity book and not the motivational dog sports games I would like the summaries from.

[Jules · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a helpful book for anyone with a reactive dog. It does tend to focus on agility training, but you can take what you want from the program, and tailor it to your own situation.
Basically, if your dog is nervous, anxious, or having a hard time focusing on your training, this will be a beneficial read for you. It's not going to be the book for every dog-owner. What this book does is set out a formula for how to WORK WITH YOUR DOG to work through all of those fears, anxieties, triggers, etc.
My point is, this book doesn't give a magic answer to those of us who adopted reactive dogs from the Humane Society and are hoping to be able to walk them down the street without wondering if they will freak out at the neighbor's off-leash collie. Like anything else, the answer seems to be time, patience, and work. This book just gives a lot of suggestions for what that work should look like.
This book outlines how to understand your dogs' stressors, and how to help him/her reframe them into something positive. It's a good book, with a lot of helpful activities and insights.

[Matthildur · Rating 5 out of 5]

Through my previous mistakes with my first reactive companion, Bella, I vowed to learn from it. When my next puppy turned out to be reactive as well and after spending a while being heartbroken about my bad luck I set out to learn more and hopefully find someone who had 'cured' reactivity.

It is difficult not to obsess about something that involves a GSD lunging, barking and growling at every sound or movement. I had gained enough knowledge about the emotional aspect of reactivity to understand that yelling or leash yanking weren't on the cards but still felt a little confused about how to properly implement a proper behavior modification program.

This book is trainer oriented and seems to rely heavily on a classroom setting but it has some very interesting tools and concepts for a handler with a dog with arousal problems. For that reason I really learned and enjoyed reading the book and it gave me more faith in my goal to rehabilitate my dog. My toolbox has expanded and I am more confident that I am on the right path and I have already seen a change of attitude in my dog.

[Shawndra · Rating 5 out of 5]

This has extremely useful exercises and training advice. I already knew some of the stuff in it from working with another trainer to learn clicker training, but found it extremely useful to have everything laid out that way with examples and practical use, etc. I liked how she used her dog Snap as an anecdotal example throughout the book. Even the simplest exercise taught me some very interesting things about my respective relationships with my two dogs. I would have said the complete opposite of what the exercise showed me if asked. Needless to say this is a book I will be referring back to time and again. It will definitely make me a better trainer. I think every dog person should read it, especially those who've adopted dogs with previous baggage.

[Johanna · Rating 4 out of 5]

A definite must-have for anyone with a reactive or high energy dog. This book primarily focuses on go-to-mat training, which I have found extremely useful for my aggressive rescue dog, however the rest of the exercises are designed for training classes with a group of several dogs, so is not very practical for owners without access to such a resource (hence the 4-Star rating). Still, for the mat work discussed in this book alone, I would highly recommend this book, especially when combined with the training techniques discussed in Click To Calm by Emma Parsons and Behavior Adjustment Training by Grisha Stewart.