Book Review: How to Train Your Dog with Love and Science (Grade: A minus)

How to Train Your Dog with Love and Science, by Annie Grossman (SourceBooks [Penguin Random House], 352 pp, 2024, $17.99) Review by Skye Anderson

In a Word - Wow! The best book I have read in several years!

I have been known to start writing a book review before finishing the book and even to suggest the Book of the Year very early in the year - but only for exceptional books. This is one such book! 

A non-fiction, how-to book that reads like a story and keeps you enthralled, a book you hate to put down. 

A book I used up an entire yellow highlighter on!

I knew, after reading the Introduction, that I would love this book! (How many readers read the Introduction, or the Acknowledgements or the Preface, other than book reviewers like me?)

Author Annie Grossman of School for the Dogs. . . 

School for the Dogs in NYC

makes the love, and the science, and the psychology of dog training easy to understand and use at home (she even takes a stab at explaining the difference between habituation and sensitization). And, she is an entertaining author to boot! But then, I should have realized that with her background as a journalist (I find books written by reporters and journalists to be, on the whole, excellent reads and when I find a book that I like, I love to read everything that person has authored - just like I tell my undergraduates to take every course from your favorite professor that you can because you will learn the most from them! But I digress.) 

Who is Train Your Dog with Love and Science For?

Ah, this took me a while to figure out and what I came up with is that Train is a resource book plus a textbook for serious dog people and a book for dog-trainers-in-training to discuss amongst themselves and with their mentors. It would also make a great book for undergraduates in a behavioral psychology course. Educators will be able to easily transfer the principles to their classrooms as Ah-ha! moments.

Dear Reader, Take the Good Dog Training Pledge on page 283 and send it to Annie!

Learning to be Brave in NYC

Grossman's personality and sense of humor shines through so much that I'll wager there are dog trainer wanna-be's out in Idaho that wish they could fly to New York City to apprentice under Grossman! I know I would, if I were a few years younger.

What Did I Like the Best? 

Author (left) and Business Partner Kate

I noticed some of my favorite words: homunculus, halcyon, Mobius strip, minions and others. I liked how the author defined terms that needed defining, right after using them in the beginning of a chapter. I like how she kept referring to future chapters when appropriate and referring to previous chapters as well. I love her sense of humor and how she makes science easy - and gives the reader the stories of scientists in little bites as well as some anecdotes from her own life. I like how, rare in a non-fiction book, this book transitions into the next chapter so well, to keep you reading - and often with humor!

Positive-Reinforcement Training - What's it All About?

Training should be fun and it can be easy if reward-based methods are used. Grossman makes it fun and easy, too, to learn this method and to apply it in other situations in daily life. Excellent teachers and parents already (unknowingly) use a lot of rewards and reinforcement.

What Would I Change?

Author Grossman clearly states in the Intro that there are four parts to her book but the table of contents does not clearly reflect this and the last part of the introduction clearly points out parts three and four only. I found a few typos in a couple of chapters* but on the whole, it was well edited.

My first thoughts that seven pages of pre-publication praise from leaders in the dog field was a bit much, even if I knew most of them but when I finally put the book down and reread those comments, I was a convert.

A Gem

I did eventually get used to the polka-dotted dogs on the cover, too! And I want to reiterate what a fun, engrossing, educational book this is. But here's a friendly warning: you will need a highlighter unless you like to take notes - so much of Annie's words are gems to remember.

Now I am waiting for a play-by-play manual, a workbook!

*perhaps more than one copy editor was used or, if one, they were interrupted mid-chapter.