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Decoding Dogs: What'd You Do That For?
Do you ever feel like you're speaking French and your dog only understands Italian? Like with any relationship, communication is key. Through real-life stories and experiences acquired over the past 15 years, Los Angeles-based dog trainer, Cassian Sandeberg, informs, enlightens and entertains while decoding the confusion behind the human-dog relationship. His unique perspective and philosophy will give you the tools to understand and communicate in a way that'll have you speaking Dog in no time.
164 pages, Paperback
Published July 6, 2017
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Displaying 1 of 1 review
April 12, 2025
I gave this book 2 stars because my reviews on books about dog training and dog rescue (my areas of expertise) are based on how well a book is written as well as on the level of knowledge and common sense of the advice given about working with dogs.
For the first 30 pages, this book was really good! Engaging and relatable anecdotes about dogs and clients, the importance of communication between dog and owner, the first book on dog training that I can recalled asking WHY a dog behaves the way he does, recommending to put one's dog's food in the middle of the room rather than in a corner, a decent glossary of terms at the beginning of the book, and a good "appendix" at the end of the book where the author promotes getting a dog from a rescue and guides readers on how to pick a dog that is right for them.
But right at the top of page 31, it started going downhill. The author—who is a dog trainer and dog rescuer—suddenly sets aside his simple idea of focusing on one's relationship with one's dog in favor of adding all sorts of tools and techniques that aren't natural or common sense to dogs. A spray bottle? A gentle leader? (Put one on your face and have someone on the other end of the leash pull you around and then tell me it's "gentle".) Constantly feeding your dog treats to distract him from barking, lungeing, pulling as well as to reward him for good behavior? Where in Nature does that happen? My last problem on the content/advice of this book is how infrequently the author emphasized the importance of exercise for a dog; I believe he only stressed it twice. However, the author wrote a LOT about spray bottles, stress and dogs' triggers.
This book gave too much bad advice which outweighed the good advice it also presented, so I only gave it 2 stars for content.
But I also gave it only 2 stars for how it's written.
- It's not organized well and doesn't flow. The author jumps topics constantly so it's hard to follow from section to section.
- LOTS of typos.
- At one point, the author wrote "...here's a secret - I use prongs on both my dogs" (which is fine), but then three pages later he writes "As I said, I used to use prong collars on my dogs..." Which is it? He CURRENTLY uses that tool on his dogs or he USED to?
- An insane overuse of phrases like "The key is"..."it's all about"..."Management is key"..."Preparation is key"..."Timing is key"..."Ultimately, it all boils down to survival".
At one point, the author writes: "My own dog, Duchess, constantly evolves and changes, forcing me to switch up my forms of correction regularly. One method will work for a bit, maybe a couple of weeks, then it will either become a trigger or Duchess will suddenly be impervious to it."
That quote pretty much sums up this book: Inconsistent and confusing.
For the first 30 pages, this book was really good! Engaging and relatable anecdotes about dogs and clients, the importance of communication between dog and owner, the first book on dog training that I can recalled asking WHY a dog behaves the way he does, recommending to put one's dog's food in the middle of the room rather than in a corner, a decent glossary of terms at the beginning of the book, and a good "appendix" at the end of the book where the author promotes getting a dog from a rescue and guides readers on how to pick a dog that is right for them.
But right at the top of page 31, it started going downhill. The author—who is a dog trainer and dog rescuer—suddenly sets aside his simple idea of focusing on one's relationship with one's dog in favor of adding all sorts of tools and techniques that aren't natural or common sense to dogs. A spray bottle? A gentle leader? (Put one on your face and have someone on the other end of the leash pull you around and then tell me it's "gentle".) Constantly feeding your dog treats to distract him from barking, lungeing, pulling as well as to reward him for good behavior? Where in Nature does that happen? My last problem on the content/advice of this book is how infrequently the author emphasized the importance of exercise for a dog; I believe he only stressed it twice. However, the author wrote a LOT about spray bottles, stress and dogs' triggers.
This book gave too much bad advice which outweighed the good advice it also presented, so I only gave it 2 stars for content.
But I also gave it only 2 stars for how it's written.
- It's not organized well and doesn't flow. The author jumps topics constantly so it's hard to follow from section to section.
- LOTS of typos.
- At one point, the author wrote "...here's a secret - I use prongs on both my dogs" (which is fine), but then three pages later he writes "As I said, I used to use prong collars on my dogs..." Which is it? He CURRENTLY uses that tool on his dogs or he USED to?
- An insane overuse of phrases like "The key is"..."it's all about"..."Management is key"..."Preparation is key"..."Timing is key"..."Ultimately, it all boils down to survival".
At one point, the author writes: "My own dog, Duchess, constantly evolves and changes, forcing me to switch up my forms of correction regularly. One method will work for a bit, maybe a couple of weeks, then it will either become a trigger or Duchess will suddenly be impervious to it."
That quote pretty much sums up this book: Inconsistent and confusing.
Displaying 1 of 1 review