What Color Is Your Dog?: Train Your Dog Based on His Personality "Color" (Kennel Club Books) Review

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(More customer reviews)With the plethora of available books on dog training, I'm continually baffled at the number of unruly dogs I see either ruling their families or terrorizing the neighborhood. Having taught training classes, I've seen many instances in which owners fail to communicate with their dogs and have great difficulty adjusting their intensity and energy level to the dogs' needs. This book is aimed at these particular issues.
At last, here is a book which is not pushing a one-size-fits-all training method and has no particular agenda to promote other than helping owners establish and develop better relationships with their dogs.
Joel Silverman is a long-time trainer of dogs for the entertainment field, as well as having trained birds, whales and cats for live performances. As a dog trainer, he was among the first to apply clicker training principles used on marine mammals to dogs. But this is NOT another clicker training book - the actual training instruction leans refreshingly toward a sensible combination of more traditional techniques, reward and correction, luring and patient instruction.
To help the owner understand his dog's personality type, Silverman uses a color-coding system which categorizes dogs by their energy level and social tendencies from outgoing, bouncy types (red) to shy and insecure (blue). The greater portion of this book is dedicated to teaching owners how to assess their dogs and how to address their training issues accordingly. For example, he purports using treats infrequently with energetic, drivey Red dogs, and routinely with the reticent Blues. Anyone who has seen a high-energy dog trained exclusively with treats bouncing around a room frenetically offering every trick it knows can relate to that! For a Red dog, a gentle touch and praise are satisfying rewards which don't kick a bouncy dog into mindless overdrive. But first, and most importantly, Silverman explains how to build a relationship with a dog before endeavoring to train - a critical step which many written methods neglect to mention.
This is not an ideal book for the seasoned obedience trainer - it is aimed at the average dog owner who may never take an obedience class. What it does offer, besides a better understanding of dogs in general, is some good solid instruction in teaching the basics - walking on a leash, sit, stay, come and NO. No fancy Hollywood dog tricks here, but that's okay - not all dogs are Lassie. As a former obedience instructor myself, my hope would be that owners who have success training their dogs with this book would be inspired to continue their training to more advanced levels. However, knowing these basic behaviors would keep many a dog out of shelters and many owners from becoming so discouraged as to eschew any sort of training at all.
Once one begins training, Silverman gives you techniques to determine if a dog is confused or testing, and how to deal with those issues according to the dog's "color." This book does not, however, delve into dealing with super problem dogs - dogs with aggression or extreme fear, but those issues are better dealt with by hiring a professional trainer who specializes in them. I'm glad he avoided them in this book.
Overall, this is a nice, handy book for anyone who just got a new dog and wants to teach it basic manners - successfully. I highly recommend it.


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This exciting new dog training book is based on the never-before-seen techniques of experienced Hollywood dog trainer, Joel Silverman. In What Color Is Your Dog? Silverman presents his revolutionary new color-coding technique to recognize and then enhance dog behavior based on the dog's personality. Silverman coaches readers on how to develop a strong relationship with new pets in their first 30 days of ownership to observe their dog's temperament and behavior. The author then teaches readers to label their dogs temperament by color, starting at one of three behavioral levels from shy (blue) to yellow (mellow) to highly strung (red). The goal is to move the dog through training practices individualized for each type of dog to inevitably reach the middle (yellow) level. This book is entertaining, informative, easy-to-read, and best of all, these usable techniques really work!

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