Do you want your dog to walk off the leash and stay right by your side? You can have the best behaved dog in town! Every day I walk my dog around the busiest streets of New Jersey for a few miles and almost every day I have someone telling me how great of a dog I have. She did not get this way from her owners watching "The Dog Whisperer". Cesar Millan is not the answer! Paul Loeb is an expert, humane dog trainer. Hopefully this page will give insight to dog owners who don't think the methods of Cesar Millan or other very typical dog trainers are working. Please keep in mind that Paul Loeb's strategies are rather controversial. But do not forget to put his methods into perspective. Being yanked by a leash for the rest of your dog's life is true cruelty. Your dog can be the best behaved dog in town without choke collars, prong collars, electric fences, crates and other cruel devices. I believe that many of the people who dismiss his books are those who didn't even read them! We got a 7 month old puppy in September of 2007, and like most new dog owners, we watched the Dog Whisperer with excitement and mimicked nearly everything he did. She still yanked and pulled, and the "correction" with the leash would solve the problem momentarily at best. If we ever let her off the leash she would just take off. I do a lot of walking and wanted us both (the dog and I) to get the most enjoyment out of the walk, so I was set on figuring out how to get her to walk and stay by my side without a leash. My wife suggested Paul Loeb's "Smarter than you think" to me, and with hesitation I read it, and very quickly everything changed for the better! Within just a month, we got rid of the crate and now only use the leash when we have to by law. We live on one of the busiest county roads in New Jersey but this doesn't matter. We do not have a fence and she will run around our yard, but never sets foot on the neighbors property or the sidewalk or street (unless we say it's okay, of course!). We do not have an old dog who is too lazy or too slow to run away. Our dog is a young pup of just 1 year and is very fast, but very obedient! She listens to us, and we don't need to use silly commands like HEAL, SIT, STAY. Who really talks like that? We walk past dogs contained by electric fences who bark at her while within feet of her and she may look at the dog but she listens to me and we continue walking. We walk briskly up to a busy intersection and stop suddenly, and when I stop, she stops immediately. There is no worry of her running into the middle of the street. I walk to town and leave her waiting outside when I go into a store to pickup a few things. The only reason I leave her outside is because it's illegal here to bring her inside. I tell her "I'll be right back" and "stay here please" and she does. You will always hear people say WHAT A WONDERFULLY BEHAVED DOG THAT IS. Every single day, I hear it. I am certainly no expert, and I am no dog whisperer. I have been a pet owner for less than 6 months, and she was this well trained within 2 months. The first two months I wasted going to dog obedience school and watching "The Dog Whisperer". This is merely a result of following Paul Loeb's advice. Why would you want to walk your dog without a leash? It is not to show off or look cool... There are many reasons. The biggest reason is safety for your dog. Being able to walk off the leash means your dog listens to you. If you have a dog who pulls or tugs, one day you could be coming up to a busy intersection and instead of stopping with you, your dog jerks the leash out of your hands and gets run over. I am not trying to be gruesome, this is just reality. (You might see someone who thinks his or her dog is trained. They're walking off the leash, but as soon as they see you with your dog, their dog comes running at you. That is not trained!!! A trained dog will look for your approval.) The other reason is quality of life. First for your dog, and secondly for you. Leashes are annoying. Getting yanked and tugged is annoying. It is not fun or comfortable for either of you. The true joy of a walk comes when you are both free of leads. One area where I do agree with Cesar Millan is that I do believe that you need to be the so-called "pack leader." Your dog needs to respect you and know that you are the top dog. I don't believe in the minute details, such as Cesar Millan's thought that your dog must exit the house after you. This is ridiculous. I hold the door open for my dog and let her go out first because that is what is easiest for me. She exits, and then waits for me. Secondly, I do think that walking and exercise are important for a dog. You have to imagine how you would feel if you were essentially locked up all day long with the exception of going to the bathroom once or twice a day and maybe a brief walk around the block. In this situation, your dog is basically your prisoner. You should make every reasonable attempt to take him or her out several times a day. If you work all day long and therefore the dog sits around the house all day, try to take the dog for a longer walk either in the morning or at night. Otherwise, if the walks are shorter, do it more frequently. I walk with my pup at least 2 miles a day. It does not take as long as you might think. We do this in half of an hour. Try it! It will make you and your dog happier. So what is all of this magic? One of Paul Loeb's major points is that your dog should be treated as a family member, not an object or possession. If you can, I encourage you to take your dog everywhere. Take him or her shopping, to the kid's baseball games, out to the park, on vacation, everywhere! The more you take your dog out with you, the more part of your family he or she will become, the happier he or she will become, the better behaved he or she will become! Many people believe that dogs are "den animals" and therefore should live in a crate. Dog's will always prefer to be with their family over being alone in their crate. By crate training your dog, you are training him or her to rely on the crate, not on you. The crate will become your dog's safety net, and in times of fear or commotion, he or she will run to the crate instead of you. Picture your house is on fire and instead of running to find you, your dog cowers in his or her crate. THIS IS NOT WHAT YOU WANT! Have your dog sleep wherever you feel most comfortable, but not by itself in a crate, regardless of whether the crate is locked or not. Our dog sleeps on the floor on a dog bed right next to my wife. Just remember, if you are putting your dog in the crate, you are separating him or her from yourself and the rest of your family. Food and treats Don't give your dog treats for doing a trick or doing something you tell it to do. Your dog should do things because you ask him or her to, not because you bribe him or her with treats. Why does this matter? Because if you train your dog with treats, your dog will only listen to whomever has the best treat. Someone could be holding up filet mignon and we could call our dog and she would come to us!!! On the subject of treats and dog's diet in general. Do you really think that a dry crumbly bone shaped cookie is a "treat"? Would you want to eat it? Think of it this way: the most conservative estimates say that dog's sense of smell is 50 times better than ours. If their sense of smell is so much better, think of what their taste buds must be like. And you feed them the same dry junk day in, day out. This needs to change! Paul Loeb's books have detailed recommendations on food types and amounts. At the very least, we recommend giving your dog REAL food (this means anything you would eat: fruit, vegetables, meat, bread, etc.! on a daily basis, if only as a supplement to his or her existing diet. My wife and I give our dog scraps. When I finish an apple, I cut out the core and give her the rest. When I finish a bowl of cereal, I pour her a few more grains of O's and let her finish it with the milk I didn't eat. When we have pizza my wife gives her one or two crusts out of the pie. I always ask "what is begging?" If begging is sitting there politely like a little lady, then our dog begs! If we give her food, fine. If we don't, fine. She is always a little lady if we give her food or not. The most controversial part of Paul Loeb's books concerns the "magic touch." The magic touch involves throwing something at your dog. YES, you have read correctly. The magic touch involves throwing an item at your dog intentionally in order to get him or her to come to you. The dog smells the item and realizes that it came from you. The dog sees this item as an extension of you and will come to you. Before you get all worked up, read on. The item is not thrown at your dog to hurt him or her. The item is proportionate to your dog's size, and is soft. With our dog, I used a t-shirt tied into a loose knot. Again you are not pelting the item at your dog, a "lob" will do just fine. The object is indeed to make contact with the dog, not just to get near him or her. If you think this is absolutely crazy and cruel, just remember the crate, electric fence, prong or choke collar that you probably have been using. All of that can be gone forever and the "magic touch" is not an ongoing thing. It took us maybe 5 throws of using the magic touch, and we have never needed to use it again. It almost seems too simple to be true, but I believe there is much more to this than just throwing something at your dog. In reading Paul Loeb's book you will have a better overall understanding of your dog and a great confidence in dealing with him or her. PLEASE, this page is not a replacement for Paul Loeb's books. This page only touches on several of the points of discussion in the book. Don't try "the magic touch" without reading the book. Your dog might just run away and never come back! All I can tell you is that it works. Our dog is the best behaved dog I have ever met and so can yours. If you think I'm nuts, prove me wrong. Buy the book (or get it from the library!!!), read it, try it, and then come back to tell me how happy you are... NOTE, I do not have any affiliation with Paul Loeb. In fact I can't find ANY information about him on the internet, hence the creation of this page. I am also working on the WikiPedia page for him. I do no make any money off of this page unless someone buys the books via the affiliate on the bottom or clicks on links at the top. So if you hate me and this page, don't do either of those. Just remember, our dog is a family member and we only want the best for her. She has a wonderful life free of leads and choke collars and the like and I don't know anyone who WOULDN'T want that for their dog.