Recommended Reading
If you are interested in learning more about Animal Assisted Therapy, here are a few of our favorite books including some books on training. Any books purchased using one of our links provide funds for Star Bright. These books can be purchased using the links to Dogwise.com or check with your local library
Service and Therapy Dogs
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THERAPY DOGS TODAY - THEIR GIFTS, OUR OBLIGATION As more and more people adjust to the physical and emotional challenges of today's chaotic world, therapy dogs are proving their worth in diverse settings. Kris Butler's workshops integrate the science of human health and education with the magic of hands-on interactions with appropriate dogs to teach health care providers, educators, volunteers, assessors, and dog trainers across the United States the most effective and ethical ways to include dogs in settings that enhance human healing, learning and self-awareness. At last she's written a book in which she explores the complex professional and ethical issues that surround the environments in which therapy dogs work and volunteer. Therapy Dogs Today: Their Gifts, Our Obligation is an important book for anyone who handles, assesses, or trains visiting therapy dogs and it is essential for professional people who oversee therapy dog programs or include their own dogs in the their workplaces. |
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THERAPY DOGS: TRAINING YOUR DOG TO REACH OTHERS Are you looking for a new and meaningful way to work with your dog? Do you want to improve the lives of those who because of illness or disability would benefit from visits with a volunteer canine? If you are thinking about becoming a Star Bright Therapy Dog Team then this New 2nd edition gives you all the information you need to select, socialize and train your dog for this work. You will learn: *What therapy dog work involves and how we train for it. Benefits therapy dog work provides for you, your dog and others. Various settings in which therapy dog teams do their work. Whether your family pet might make a good therapy dog. Selecting and training a puppy for therapy work. How to keep yourself and your dog fresh for the work. |
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"HOW TO BEHAVE SO YOUR DOG BEHAVES" by Sophia Yin approach to dog training is a perfect meshing of the scientific theory and practical application. What is most important is her introduction to trainers of the significance of the person´s behavior and its effect on the dog´s learning ability. Sophia has done this better than anyone else, emphasizing in a very readable fashion the lasting effects of people´s actions on their dog´s behaviors. This is an important book for anyone who wants to maximize correct interactions with the pet." - Dr. Raymond Coppinger, PhD, Professor of Biology, Hampshire College, author of Dogs, A New Understanding Of Canine Origin, Behavior and Evolution |
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ON TALKING TERMS WITH DOGS: CALMING SIGNALS 2ND. ED. This little book by Norwegian trainer and behaviorist Turid Rugaas provides a dog-to-human dictionary of canine body language. Through years of observation, Rugaas has identified gestures and movements that dogs use to signal to other dogs-- and humans –that they have peaceful intentions. They also use calming signals when they are stressed. These signals include yawning, sniffing the ground, licking the nose, and looking away, to name a few… In perhaps the biggest improvement in the second edition, the calming signals are now presented in full-color photographs. |
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THE GOLDEN BRIDGE: A GUIDE TO ASSISTANCE DOGS FOR CHILDREN CHALLENGED BY AUTISM OR OTHER DEVELOPMENTAL DISABILITIES Patty Dobbs Gross provides both personal as well as professional advice on how specially bred and trained dogs help to facilitate communication for children with autism and other developmental disabilities. This important information compendium is a guide for parents raising a child who is on the autism spectrum, with old myths and new research concerning autism explored, examined and redefined. While focused on children with developmental differences, the advice that Gross shares will be immensely helpful for anyone involved in breeding, raising, and training a dog to help any child socially, emotionally or educationally. Seizure alert training, canine behavioral genetics and techniques to help children deal with a loss with the help of an assistance dog are reviewed. |
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PENNY'S FROM HEAVEN - STORIES OF HEALING Stories of Penny, a Golden Retriever who is a certified therapy dog. Penny's gift of presence awakens something in "her" patients. In the rehabilitation hospital, full of hustle and bustle, a calm and quiet exchange occurs where pain is diminished and limbs become a little easier to move toward this golden healing angel. The amazing stories are full of heart and soul, and Penny's special paws-on therapy will enlighten, amaze, and illustrate a ministry of which most folks aren't aware. |
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BRINGING LIGHT TO SHADOW - A DOG TRAINER'S DIARY Every trainer, everyone who has ever owned or worked with an aggressive dog needs this book! The gods that protect fools, optimists, and little children must have known what they were doing when they brought together this dog and this owner. Shadow was a handsome, fearful, aggressive, secondhand Border Collie. He lashed out at people without warning and avoided human touch. Pam Dennison was a professional dog trainer with 12 years experience and a half dozen successful dog adoptions behind her when she met Shadow. When she found him at a Border Collie rescue site on the Internet she was just looking to round out her canine family. Like a match.com date she decided to meet Shadow "just to see" and, because she couldn't think of any reason not to take him home, he became hers. He also became her problem! Follow their 18-month journey, in diary form, from the early, dark days of fear and furstration to the daylight of confidence and trust. Learn how difficult it is, even for a professional dog trainer, to handle a dog with a past - and a temper too. A trainer who refused to give up while using positive, no-force training methods |
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DON'T SHOOT THE DOG Not exclusively a dog training book - Karen Pryor is famous as an early dolphin trainer. Outlines 8 methods for putting an end to all kinds of undesirable behavior without yelling, threats, force, punishment, guilt trips - or shooting the dog; the 10 laws of shaping behavior through affection training; how to combat your own addictions to alcohol, drugs, cigarettes, overeating or whatever; how to deal with such difficult problems as a moody spouse, an impossible teen, or an aged parent; PLUS housetraining the dog, improving your tennis game, keeping the cat off the table, and much, much more! New revised edition has new chapter, "Clicker Training, A New Technique." This covers the use of clickers in dog training, why it works, and how it has caught on. There is little or no practical application here, so we recommend Karen's Clicker Training Start-up Kit or DTB622 Clicker Training for Dogs. This is the theory! |
For more information about the Star Bright Therapy Dogs or the Waggin' Tales Reading contact Dorothy Blair our Training Director/Founder by email: dot@starbrightdogs.org