Book review: The Cautious Canine

The Cautious Canine: How To Help Dogs Conquer Their Fears
by Patricia McConnell

This 30-page booklet gives you a quick walk through of the possibilities to help dogs with their fears. Don't expect the actual treatment to be just as short as this booklet, the author also clearly manages any expectations you might have for a "quick fix" on page 1.

It is not possible to cover a complex subject as behavior based on fear in a booklet, but the author manages very well to give a good overview of how a treatment schedule could look like in a five step program. She indicates what all the key factors are you should be aware of and follows up with some recommendations for further reading. What I liked in particular was that it describes hands-on and real-life situations you might encounter when following the five steps.

This booklet will definitely get you started, no time to waste.

The only thing I found disappointing was that the examples, although the booklet uses a lot of them, always elaborated on the same subjects: meeting new people, or the mailmen or pizza boy at the door. And there are lot more factors that can trigger fear in a dog. Instead of elaborating on the same examples, different examples could have been used like fear for other dogs, sounds, crowds, etc.