Further Educational Resources for New Dog Owners

The RCO Primer (and associated RCO Certification) are meant to be a starting point for new dog owners – an initial survey of the knowledge and skills they need to build in the first months and years of their life with their dog. Our goal, as we lay out in our mission, is to show owners how much they don’t know, and the consequences of those gaps in knowledge, in the hope that will encourage more of them to continue on an educational journey to become better, more responsible handlers.

As a result, and as we repeatedly emphasize in the Primer, we strongly recommend that you not only take at minimum one 6-12 week basic obedience course with your dog, but that you also tap into some of the many amazing books, online resources, and local trainers out there to expand and deepen your knowledge.

To help, we have tried to curate a repository of reliable resources below that we can recommend.

It is not a complete list, and we are constantly adding to it, but it is a place to start. If there is a good resource you don’t see here that you think we should check out, please let us know on the contact page!

Finally, neither the books below nor the RCO Primer are a replacement for taking classes and working with trainers. Classes give you hands-on practice and feedback that will be worth every penny and second of time you spend on them.

Read more context
Medium
Tags

  • Before & After Getting Your Puppy by Ian Dunbar

    Ian Dunbar is one of the founding trainers and academics in contemporary dog training. It is in fair part thanks to his work and his activism that recreational dog training has come so far in the past half-century. His puppy book does a fantastic job of covering some of the most critical things you need to do in the first year of your puppy’s life, from socialization and bite inhibition to crate training and separation anxiety.

    • Core Reading
    • Training
    • Puppy Rearing
    • Bite Inhibition
    • Chewtoy Training
    • Crate Training
    • Potty Training
    • Separation Anxiety
    • Socialization
    • Walking & Leash Skills

  • Don’t Shoot the Dog by Karen Pryor

    Karen Pryor was a pioneer in clicker training and helped establish and propagate many of the best practices in puppy rearing. Her introductory book is short, readable, and does fantastic job of teaching the most important core principles of training with operant conditioning.

    • Core Reading
    • Training
    • Clicker Training
    • Potty Training
    • Reactivity & Aggression
    • Socialization

  • The Other End of the Leash by Patricia McConnell

    One of the best books out there for improving your understanding of how dogs think and perceive the world. Strongly recommended for new dog owners; it will help you develop a much better mentality around, intuition for, and understanding of your dog’s behavior.

    • Core Reading
    • Dog Language & Psychology
    • Breed Effects
    • Reactivity & Aggression
    • Socialization

  • Cooperative Care by Deborah A. Jones

    As we mention in the RCO Primer Chapter 5-1, adopting cooperative care, particularly if you do it early in a puppy’s life, can significantly improve your and your dog’s quality of life by making grooming a pleasant experience for both of you. Dr. Jones’s nicely compact book does an excellent job of conveying both core concepts and practical implementation.

    • Core Reading
    • Husbandry
    • Socialization

  • The RCO Primer

    Our very own Primer for Responsible Canine Ownership! In it, we try to survey a range of concepts that all new dog owners should be familiar with; concepts like socialization, crate training, the need for behavioral training, the need for physical activity, etc. As mentioned at the start of it, it is meant lead you to the other resources on this list, not replace them. It is meant (a) as a survey, to give new owners exposure to a breadth of the concepts they will need to learn, and (b) as a reference, for you to look back and remind yourself of those concepts.

    • Core Reading
    • Training
    • Puppy Rearing
    • Dog Language & Psychology
    • Bite Inhibition
    • Breed Effects
    • Chewtoy Training
    • Clicker Training
    • Crate Training
    • Husbandry
    • Potty Training
    • Reactivity & Aggression
    • Resource Guarding
    • Separation Anxiety
    • Socialization
    • Walking & Leash Skills

  • Socialization Checklist

    As discussed in Chapter 1-2 of the RCO Primer, early, repeated, properly-conducted, and broad socialization with unfamiliar people, places, and things is critical for healthy puppy development. Well conducted socialization not only makes your puppy comfortable with a wider range of specific experiences and stimuli, it also improves her more general resilience, adaptability, and confidence. See the RCO Primer for further discussion of some of the pitfalls and basic principles of ‘well conducted’ socialization are. An important part of that is breadth – making sure that you expose your puppy to as close as possible to the full range of stimuli she’s likely to experience in her life. To help you achieve that, we’ve created this printable checklist of stimuli to socialize with.

    • Puppy Rearing
    • Socialization

  • AKC Canine Good Citizen (CGC)

    With any luck, the RCOC and associated Primer should give you a strong start to your learning journey. As you (hopefully) continue on to read books and take classes, you and your dog’s capabilities will grow. Once you’re ready, a great fairly near-term objective we recommend you shoot for is taking the AKC’s Canine Good Citizen (CGC) test.

    This is a test run in-person with a certified trainer, who will test you and your dog on important core behaviors, like sitting politely, being comfortable when you approach strangers, and walking through a crowd.

    There are different ‘levels’ you can pass, starting with the basic CGC and graduating to CGC-Advanced and CGC-Urban. Don’t be intimidated – if you’re working regularly with your dog, taking classes, and tapping into some of the other resources on this list, you should have no problem passing. We strongly recommend you work towards it! If you tell your class instructor you’re interested in taking the CGC, they can work with you on each of the items you need to pass. When you’re ready, you can search for evaluator’s near you on the AKC website (linked above).

    • Core Reading
    • Training
    • Advanced Certifications

  • The Puppy Primer by Patricia McConnell and Brenda Scidmore

    Patricia McConnell is one of the best thinkers and teachers out there on how we can better intuit and understand how dog’s think and why they do what they do. Her other book The Other End of the Leash (see below) is our best recommendation for getting a better understanding of your dog’s psychology. Her Puppy Primer, in collaboration with Brenda Scidmore, is a bit less in-depth than Karen Pryor or Ian Dunbar’s puppy introductions (see above), but augments them nicely with some different lenses onto the psychology side.

    • Training
    • Puppy Rearing
    • Bite Inhibition
    • Socialization

  • Train the Dog in Front of You by Denise Fenzi

    All too often, particularly with new dog owners, we tend to treat training practices as a template, a one-size-fits-all. In reality, dogs, like people, vary widely in what motivates them and how they respond to the world around them. See, for example, Primer Chapters 2-4: Different primary motivators and 6-7: Personality variation. Denise Fenzi, one of the most experienced, clever, and creative sports trainers out there, is a major advocate of that notion, and in this book does a great job of communicating different lenses you can use to better think about and understand the dog in front of you.

    • Training
    • Breed Effects
    • Reactivity & Aggression

  • Dunbar Academy

    Ian Dunbar has been both a pioneer in the practical application of behavioral science and an early champion popularizing and promoting many important concepts like bite inhibition training, chewtoy training, and errorless learning. He is an exceptional educator, and his website has a wide range of educational videos covering both specific topics and general surveys for puppies, children, reactivity, etc.

    • Training
    • Puppy Rearing
    • Bite Inhibition
    • Crate Training
    • Potty Training
    • Reactivity & Aggression
    • Separation Anxiety
    • Socialization

  • Clicker training for dogs by Karen Pryor

    Karen Pryor is a pioneer in clicker training, an extremely effective method of marking and shaping that not only works great for your dog, it also tends to help you grow and improve as a trainer. This book is an oldie, but it’s from the master herself. We’d recommend her other book however, Don’t shoot the dog, first for most owners as a broader and more up-to-date coverage of core principles.

    • Training
    • Clicker Training

  • Dog Language by Roger Abrantes

    As we discuss in the RCO Primer Chapter 4-7, it’s hugely important to learn how to read your dog, to understand what they are thinking and how they are feeling based on the verbal and physical signals they provide. As we talk about there, it’s a fool’s errand for most owners to try and memorize a prescriptive list of behaviors to interpret; instead, as we talk about in Chapter 4-8, it’s important to pay attention to your dog, observe them, and let your brain pick up on the patterns in their behavior. Even so, it is incredibly helpful to have a starting place in learning what sorts of signals to look for. To that end we recommend two fantastic books, both on this list: one by Brenda Aloff, and the other by Roger Abrantes.

    • Dog Language & Psychology

  • Canine Body Language: A Photography Guide by Brenda Aloff

    As we discuss in the RCO Primer Chapter 4-7, it’s hugely important to learn how to read your dog, to understand what they are thinking and how they are feeling based on the verbal and physical signals they provide. As we talk about there, it’s a fool’s errand for most owners to try and memorize a prescriptive list of behaviors to interpret; instead, as we talk about in Chapter 4-8, it’s important to pay attention to your dog, observe them, and let your brain pick up on the patterns in their behavior. Even so, it is incredibly helpful to have a starting place in learning what sorts of signals to look for. To that end we recommend two fantastic books, both on this list: one by Brenda Aloff, and the other by Roger Abrantes.

    • Dog Language & Psychology

  • Dogs in Translation by Katja Krauss and Gabi Maue

    A dryer but even more in-depth read than our other recommendations on dog communication. For most casual readers we’d recommend starting with the McConnell, Abrantes, or Aloff books, but if want to dig deeper, particularly into the ethological aspect of communication, it’s an excellent and up-to-date resource,

    • Dog Language & Psychology

  • Meet Your Dog by Kim Brophey

    A great introduction to the role that breed can play in behavior. She also uses breed as a backdrop to introduce a range of important advanced concepts like the Premack Principle and Impulse Control.

    • Breed Effects

  • Crate Games (DVD) by Susan Garrett

    As we cover in RCO Primer Chapter 1-8, slow, careful, and positive crate training is a necessary component of every puppy’s early life. Crates, when used and trained properly, provide them with a sanctuary, a familiar place they feel safe and calm – an invaluable tool for you and your dog’s quality of life in a wide range of circumstances, ranging from potty training, to visiting guests, to traveling on the road. In addition to the RCO Primer chapter, several books on this list, such as Ian Dunbar’s introduction, take you through crate training techniques in written form, but Susan Garrett’s much-loved DVD is a great addition to those, as she provides video instruction in a range of games you can play to help your dog love her crate.

    • Puppy Rearing
    • Crate Training

  • Fenzi Circle Method

    Denise Fenzi is one of the most notable and innovative trainers of our time, and teaches a range of workshops and webinars on subjects across both behavioral topics and dog sports. Of particular note for many new dog owners is her ‘circle method’ – a highly effective approach to teaching loose-leash walking that minimizes frustration for dog and handler.

    • Walking & Leash Skills

  • Resource Guarding Comments by Patricia McConnell

    Comments on how to handle resource guarding, from the estimable Patricia McConnell (see separate entries for her excellent books).

    • Resource Guarding

  • Food Guarding Guide from ASPCA

    ASPCA comments on how to handle food guarding. These are a great starting point, alongside Patricia McConnell’s comments, for how you can think about the issue, but as always we recommend working with a professional trainer when tackling something as potentially dangerous and easily-exacerbated as resource guarding.

    • Resource Guarding

  • Furbo & Ring Cameras

    In-home Dog Cameras:

    Furbo and Ring are two in-home camera companies. If you’ll be leaving your dog at home for any length of time, we strongly recommend you have a camera in place to be able to check on them. In particular, both of these companies have algorithms for detecting continuous barking. As we cover in the Primer sections on Separation Anxiety and Self-Reinforcing Behaviors, your dog may – out of anxiety, stress, or conditioning – start continuously barking for minutes or even hours while you’re out of the house, without you even realizing. In addition to being annoying for neighbors, that’s not healthy behavior for your dog. A camera helps you detect the issue, so that you can work with a trainer to identify the root cause and remedy it.

    • Useful Products

  • Cooling Harnesses

    Per RCO Primer Chapter 4-1: Overheating, dogs lack the ability sweat across their full body as humans do, making them much less efficient than us at cooling, and therefore making them less active and more prone heat-related injury at temperatures that we would find comfortable.

    Cooling harneses mimic the cooling mechanism of human sweat: you soak them in water (or put in ice sheets), and they cool through evaporation (or melting). That has two benefits for your pup: (a) obviously it reduces the risk of heat injury; (b) by keeping them cool, it makes your dog more active in the sun and heat, helping them meet their physical activity needs even when it’s hot out. For the latter reason alone we strongly recommend a cooling harness in the summer for most dogs in most climes.

    Ruffwear makes an awesome one, in both regular and lightweight versions.

    • Useful Products

  • GPS/Activity-tracking Collars

    GPS-enabled collars offer two big benefits:

    (a) Lost Dog: per the RCO Primer Chapter 2-29: Off-leash requirements, your dog shouldn’t be allowed off-leash until they have solid recall even in distracted scenarios, and should be in the habit of regularly checking in with you anyway. Even so, mistakes happen – dogs escape from yards, or things happen on hikes that are unexpected. A GPS-enabled collar allows you to track your dog, so that in the hopefully unlikely case your dog gets lost, you can avoid tragedy.

    (b) Activity tracking: Per the RCO Primer Chapter 3-1: Physical activity needs, you need to make sure your dog is getting sufficient amounts of physical activity. The collars listed above track your dog’s activity levels – both total ‘steps’ and intensity. That can make it easier for you to make sure you’re on top of her needs; for example, you might find from observation of your dog’s behavior and emotional state that “ok Sally is in good shape as long as we get 2-3 days of 25k-30k steps, and we just got 30k steps yesterday so it’s OK if we have a lighter day today.”

    Unfortunately, we cannot recommend Fi collars specifically at this time, because their transition from Fi 2.0 to Fi 3.0 revealed serious problems with the reliability and longevity of their products and their commitment to customers and dogs.

    • Useful Products

  • Affective Neuroscience by Jaak Panksepp

    This is an extremely advanced text, not appropriate for the vast majority of owners, but we include it on the list for interested parties. It is focused not on dog training but rather on the foundations (as of 1998) of what we know of animal (and human) psychology. While it is a wonderful resource, there are two important notes: (1) as mentioned, most of the essays that comprise the text are written for students of animal psychology. Many lay readers without some form of scientific background may struggle with the text. (2) Behavioral science is easily one of the most rapidly-evolving fields among all scientific disciplines; as such, we know much more today than we did at the time of writing. Despite both of those points, it is a fantastic starting point for starting to look at how your dog (and you) think from a very different sort of lens. If you do decide to undertake it, we recommend that you approach it not with the aim of memorizing specific facts and information, but rather, over the course of the text, to generally improve your understanding of how animals think and behave.

    • Academic Resources (ADVANCED)

  • Adaptation and Learning by Steven R. Lindsay

    Another extremely advanced text, not appropriate for the vast majority of owners, but we include it on the list for interested parties. This text is an excellent survey of our understanding (as of 2000) of how dogs think and learn, but can be very difficult to access for readers not coming from at least some form of scientific background. Besides being a challenging read for many, it also does not cover what’s been learned in the last 20 years; behavioral science is easily one of the most rapidly-evolving fields among all scientific disciplines. Despite all of that, it is on this list for a reason: if you want to start accessing a more academic side to behavioral training in dogs, you’d be hard-pressed to find a better place to start.

    • Academic Resources (ADVANCED)