If you have no experience with clicker training, I don't think this book will be enough. You really need to see it in action.

If you do have experience with clicker training, you won't find anything novel here. It's just a handful of basic obedience cues trained in the most straightforward way. ( )

Clicker Training for dogs can be quickly and easily learned -- this book proves it. While it won't give you a strong theoretical background, it gets the job done quickly and easily. Limited for time? Just want results? Go for this one. You and your dog can start at page one, go right though, and come out happier at the end.

If you have children, they may ask you why the people in the illustrations don't have clothes on, or hair on their heads, but are just outlines.

Author Peggy Tillman told me why. She said, "There really is a reason. My husband and I have an ergonomic/human factors business. We help make designs and equipment user-friendly... I developed computer mannequins to put in the designs to help people visualize how humans would fit. These characters in the book are those mannequins... I am not an artist. I couldn't draw a person freehand if my life depended on it. However, the manikins are anthropometrically (correct size proportions) correct."

The pictures clearly illustrate the training steps, and the book would be a good one to use with your kids.

Peggy Tillman commented on that too: "The book was based on my classroom handouts and I made sure it was simple so the adults would read it and the kids could read it. It is written at the 5th grade level for this reason."

Corresponding with Peggy led me to pull the book out again and try some of the exercises. I'm intrigued by the "Put it away" exercise, where the dog learns to put toys in a toybox, laundry in a basket, and more. ( )

We actually don't use clicker training because it's so easy to get the timing wrong and really confuse your dog. Instead, we just use treats for rewards. But we keep this book around because it has some good ideas for how to train certain things, even if you don't use the clicker to reward. ( )