Captain Haggerty was in the Army K-9 Corps. He taught some of the nation's most prominent dog trainers. He writes a dog behavior column in the AKC Gazette. Carol Benjamin is a professional dog trainer and the author of many dog books. Some of those are Dog Problems, The Chosen Puppy: How to Select and Raise a Great Puppy from and Animal Shelter, Dog Training in Ten Minutes, and many more. With those credentials, they'd better know what they're doing!
There are 19 chapters. The first one is No Trick Tricks, like kiss and wag your tail. It's quick and simple. Watch your dog, name something they're doing on their own, and praise him for it. Need to get them started? Use a dab of butter on where you want him to kiss you.
Chapter 2 is Retrieving Tricks, like fetch on command, variations on a theme, and fetch from water. I don't like part of the training, like the choke collar, so I skipped that part. I did put my dog on a leash and did what they said otherwise. My dog Snowy has never minded taking things from me, but he doesn't like to bring them back. He refuses to fetch. This is the first book that the training worked on getting him to bring it back. Now he doesn't need the leash to give me things. Variations is about getting him to fetch other things than the practice item.
Chapter 3 is Scent Discrimination Tricks, like Smell it--Find it, Find the Ball, Find a Person, Carry a Message. Smell it--Find it worked beautifully with Cuddles. He took to that trick like it was made for him. My Snowball, on the other hand (he always seems to be on the other hand), got really stubborn about this. We're still working on it.
Cuddles already knew the Find a Person trick, but this helped us refine it from a trick just in the house to keeping his attention outdoors.
Chapter 4 is Oldies But Goodies. These are the regular tricks, like Give Your Paw, Play Dead, Roll Over and so on. 5 is Silly Tricks like Carry a Pipe, Wear a Hat, etc. It tells you how to work up to each of these.
Chapter 6 is Parlor Tricks. 7 is Useful Tricks like Bring your Dish, Answer the Phone, Bark to Go Out, Pick Things Up, Open and Close Door, and Turn TV on or off. 8 is Jumping Tricks, 9 is Agility Tricks, and 10 is Circus Tricks. Chapter 11 is Amazing Tricks, like Walk Another Dog. I can tell you right now I won't try that one. Our dogs barely get along as is. If one were to try to control the other, the battle would be on!
Chapter 12 is Magic Tricks, 13 is Tricks are for Kids, 14 is New Tricks for Old Dogs. Yes, they can be taught!
Chapter 15 is one I'll be concentrating on now. This is Emergency Tricks. Fire and Smoke Detection, Bark at Intruders, Find a Lost Object and Food Refusal. Most of these are self-explanatory. Food Refusal is important to protect your friend from those creatures that like to poison dogs. There are more chapters. These are the really complicated tricks I probably won't ever try. Some I don't even understand the explanations! There are 88 different tricks for you to choose from.