Team Dog: How To Train Your Dog—the Navy SEAL Way

The Navy SEAL brand expands: add canine instruction to the fiction, diet, and workout books. Ritland, former SEAL team member, military working dog trainer, and, lately, best-selling author (Trident K9 Warriors), shares his force-free methods. He stresses how owners should carry themselves and writes convincingly of the importance of body language in the human-dog relationship. Included are chapters on canine perception, choice of the right animal, care and maintenance, and solutions to problem behaviors. The training (with clicker) section is relatively brief. Writing in the way of a commando, Ritland gets in and out quickly, an approach that has benefits and drawbacks. On the one hand, his no-nonsense style may embolden timid owners to become leaders their dogs will respect and heed. On the other, Ritland's rush—he provides "quick" charts and summaries, he's wary of getting "bogged down in too many details," and declines to offer a bibliography, noting that "plenty of resources are available online or at your bookstore"—seems to contradict a central SEAL tenet: mastering the details.