Control Unleashed Reactive To Relaxed

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Finally, in chapter ten, McDevitt provides us with a progress report for her own dog Snap, for whom she developed the Control Unleashed programme.

I especially like her methods of reducing anxiety and conditioning a relaxed response in a dog, thereby changing their internal state and response to stimulus. Her background in behaviour modification and her experience working with dog sports clients led her to create her popular course, Control Unleashed. McDevitt stresses that this is a behavioural programme and not an agility class or obedience programme.She continues to explain why impulse control and agility must go hand in paw, providing more games for dealing with poor impulse control on the agility course. It is easy to read and understand and nicely formatted to make the many approaches she suggests palatable. So, definitely a must-have for any aficionados of the CU systm (and I really think everyone would benefit from these books, to one degree or another). In her third book, Control Unleashed: Reactive to Relaxed , Leslie McDevitt discusses her exciting new additions to the Control Unleashed® training program, as well as new perspectives and revisions of the foundation behaviors and core games.

In chapter nine, McDevitt discusses applying control unleashed to agility contexts, starting with the warm up before moving on to running the sequence. In addition, McDevitt uses the Premack Principle with a twist, and resolves a conflict that has long troubled me about dog training; the expectation that the handler must train the dog to ignore the environment and offer constant attention. 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.

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. McDevitt also shows us parallel games, which gives the dog a task to focus on while working near other dogs. McDevitt then moves on detail why sniffing is not a crime, as well as how to teach the dog to think through his arousal using the Off Switch game. Chapter four looks at playing with stimulation levels and McDevitt shows us some active attention exercises, designed to help focus and impulse control.

As with the previous books it does suffer very slightly from the descriptions of procedures being (despite the author's best intentions) a bit opaque and hard to be sure you're following correctly. Haven't finished reading yet, but implementing what I have learned, we almost manage passing other dogs without barking. My problem with the book was that in the middle of a discussion on training methods and terms used in the discussion, the book referrers to future chapters for a detailed discussion of the method and/or terms.Thankfully there is a book that walks both instructors and dog owners through creative, positive, science-based methods for transforming dogs in an anxious, excitable state into one that is calm and in which they are able to focus and learn. So I would probably have bought this book when it first came out if I'd read the whole summary and stuff. McDevitt shows us the There’s a Dog in Your Face Game, which can be used as preparation for even closer encounters, as well as explaining how this applies to real life. In chapter six, McDevitt works on increasing both enthusiasm and focus in a distracting environment, by teaching the Give Me A Break game, a simple and powerful way to increase the dog’s attention and eagerness to work with you.