• Before and After Getting Your Puppy

  • The Positive Approach to Raising a Happy, Healthy, and Well-Behaved Dog
  • By: Ian Dunbar
  • Narrated by: Michael Page
  • Length: 4 hrs and 58 mins
  • 4.5 out of 5 stars (284 ratings)

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Before and After Getting Your Puppy  By  cover art

Before and After Getting Your Puppy

By: Ian Dunbar
Narrated by: Michael Page
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Publisher's summary

Before and After Getting Your Puppy is a simple, practical guide for anyone bringing a new puppy into the family. In clear steps, with easy-to-follow training deadlines, Dr. Ian Dunbar, who pioneered puppy classes and a loving style of dog training in the 1970s, presents a structured yet playful and humorous plan for raising a wonderful dog.

The guide is based on six developmental deadlines:

  • Completing owner education and preparation
  • Assessing a puppy's prior socialization and education
  • Teaching errorless house-training and chew-toy training
  • Completing a socialization program of meeting strange dogs and people
  • Learning bite inhibition
  • A continuing program of ongoing training

In the first half of the book, Dr. Dunbar focuses on what the owner needs to know to select a great puppy. In the second half, he presents the crucial lessons the puppy must be taught during its impressionable early development. Over time, Dr. Dunbar's kind, positive program has been proven the most effective.

©2004 Dr. Ian Dunbar (P)2016 Tantor

What listeners say about Before and After Getting Your Puppy

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Disappointing

Ian Dunbar is one of my favorites when it comes to trainers. He helped promote the bond between dog and owner.
However, this book was very disappointing.
It lacked training methods, just vague concepts. It constantly relied on talking poorly on owners who missed the socialization period with their dog and said that your dog would be "mentally retarded" for the rest of his life if you didn't socialize by 12 weeks.
As a dog trainer, I think these broad, negative statements only make people fear training their dog.

I would not recommend as a book for owners looking for training advice.

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10 people found this helpful

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Not enough substance

Too much repetition and not enough substance. Some good pointers, but the repetition gets monotonous.

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5 people found this helpful

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Most read

I loved this book because it is writing with knowledge and heart.
The writer has a lot of love and respect for dogs, and he knows what he is talking about. I think that is wonderful.

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3 people found this helpful

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Essential listening for puppy-dog owners!

Excellent book, excellent narration. Should be required reading or listening before anyone is allowed to own a puppy or dog! I cannot emphasize enough how important the information in this book is if you want to have a well adjusted dog who is a joy to be around and is a happy member of your family.

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Lovely narration of a harsh book

First of all let me say that the narrator fits this book perfectly. With his lovely British accent it is a joy to listen to. I read several websites which referred me to this book regarding training a new puppy. Fully half the book is dedicated to work you should do before getting a puppy but by the time I got the book the puppy was already in our home. And this makes you feel behind the eight ball from the very beginning. Throughout the book he emphasizes “errorless training”. Nothing is errorless in life — especially puppy training! It makes you feel terrible for every accident or slip. Furthermore he has deadlines and time tables by which things must be done in a puppies life. I’m sure there are ideals and goals but puppy development is not black-and-white and good training can continue past his artificial deadlines. All in all I think this is a very judgmental and harsh book which has some good ideas that I will take away. The prevailing feeling is fear and anxiety so if you want that go ahead and get this book.

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Fantastically Informative

I have searched far and wide for someone/information that not only makes sense to me, but resonates with me.

I think that Dr Ian Dunbar’s training methods and techniques are the way of the future.

I would recommend this book to any pet owner who wants to be the best pet parent they can. This book gave me a lot of confidence on how to approach my dog, and dogs to come, in terms of their training and integration of our lifestyles.

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Repetitive / Boring / Unrealistic

This was well intended, but most of the ideas expressed in this book are far reaching and unrealistic. Overall, this was hard to listen to due to the constant repetitive points and ideas, causing boredom.
I did like some of the humor and that made it a little more bearable, but not really very much.

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Must read for new puppy owners!

This book was a fantastic guide for my husband and i who are first time dog owners. I feel a lot more prepared knowing these tips and tools. I highly recommend listening/reading this book BEFORE you adopt! There is so much I did not know and I wish we were a little more prepared from day one. I highly recommend it!

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very helpful

I can not believe how much I've learned from this book and how much more prepared I feel to own a dog.

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This was awful

what a negative book about training your puppy..I just wanted a quick look at getting a new puppy, because its been 16 years since my last puppy.I couldn't get to the good part, if there was any.

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