I have just filled in a survey for Guide Dogs designed to discover what puppy walkers and trainers know about positive reinforcement training - They have recently appointed a new head trainer who will be teaching us all these methods. Guide Dog training is already very positive, with very few corrections involved. It looks like they are now phasing out all corrections. Does anyone have any recommendations of good books or links I could read on this? I have been surfing and only really found arguments in favour, I'm already in favour and want to find out more. Here is a video of two guide dogs in early training. You will see that there are already almost no corrections involved. ..
I do like Kay Lawrence's stuff - I like Learning Games, and A Perfect Foundation in particular (both of which are probably advanced enough for you, and also probably useful for new pups). She spends hardly any time on why no corrections, and just gets on with it. She spends a fair bit of time on the importance of choice in learning, which I found helpful. I'm also reading Control Unleashed - the puppy programme, right now. Although I'm not sure whether it would interest you - possibly it would. It's all about raising a puppy who is later going to do some performance work, pretty similar to guide dogs, I should think.
I've recently been directed to the Pet Professional Guild website for something else. There is a wealth of research and reading material on there that would be worth checking out I think.
Kay's stuff is good, I like the LAD clicker guides 1 2 and 3 and of course masses of stuff on Emily Larlham's Kikopup channel - and Chirag Patel and John McGuigan, and Nando Brown and Donna Hill and... Well, this lot really http://thehappypuppysite.com/top-dog-training-youtube-channels/
I've been sent here, too. I'm really interested in the virtual summit in August, have you seen the schedule?
Here's the blurb: http://www.petprofessionalguild.com/Virtual-Pet-Care-Summit And the schedule: http://www.petprofessionalguild.com/event-2247568 Some of it is irrelevant, but some could be interesting. I'm not sure if it's worth the fee for the bits that are relevant to me, though.
