Puppy Kindergarten: Brian Hare and Vanessa Woods on Raising the Next Generation of Working Dogs

Out this fall from Random House: Puppy Kindergarten, the third book from Brian Hare and Vanessa Woods. It follows a single cohort of eight-week-old puppies through Duke's research nursery — the same program that has helped Canine Companions place more confident, more cognitively flexible service dogs in the homes of people who need them.

The argument

The first weeks of a puppy's life are not a blank slate to be filled with obedience drills. They are a sensitive period for forming a working theory of humans. Get that theory right, and almost everything else falls into place. Get it wrong, and even a brilliant dog will struggle with the cooperative tasks we ask of them.

What's portable

You don't need a Duke research budget to use the curriculum. Two ideas in particular travel well: structured exposure over flooding, and rest as a training tool. Both are covered in detail, with the kind of footnoted, study-backed reasoning Hare and Woods are known for from The Genius of Dogs and Survival of the Friendliest.

Puppy Kindergarten is available wherever books are sold.