Book review – Don’t Eat That! by Simone Mueller

For my birthday I got gifted the third book in the Predation Substitute Training series by Simone Mueller, called ‘Don’t Eat That!’. The subtitle is ‘force-free food avoidance training for dogs who love to scavenge’. I like to collect and read force-free dog training books, so I really wanted this one too! Today my review of this book.

About the book

My copy has a softcover and is about 15 by 23 cm. Not too big, nice size to take with you on the go. The book contains 166 pages with some black and white images.

In the first chapters, Simone explains exactly what scavenging is and why dogs search for food. She also tells about various training techniques, and why we should not use some techniques. She also writes about the POMC gene, which occurs in Labrador retrievers, among other breeds. I have a Lab with one copy of this gene, and I can confirm that while this makes her very food motivated during training, Idunn also likes to forage for food on her own. The advice and games in this book are therefore very applicable to her!

Here are some cool enrichment ideas and a series of games to train how to handle scavenging and learning to leave found food. Many of the games are followed by a number of ‘problems’ that you may run into during training, and the possible solutions to that problem.

A wonderful quote from the first part of the book describes the goal very nicely, in my opinion: “The goal is not to completely eliminate scavenging, but to allow them to practice it safely. Eliminating it completely is an unrealistic expectation.” So: how do you learn to deal with this in a safe way, and how do you teach your dog to safely meet the need to look for food.
In addition to the games, some emergency cues are also taught, and Simone has also included a link to a downloadable PDF with a Training Log.

My opinion

I enjoyed this book! Simone writes very clearly, and gives good arguments why certain things are better to do, or why some things can better be avoided. She also explains in a nice way why aversive methods are not the right way to solve the problem of scavenging.
Here and there I missed some scientific depth, but I think that the average dog owner is not looking for that at all, and in the end this book is mainly written for them, of course. It’s easy to follow, the games are nicely step-by-step and the problem-solving tips are extensive and clear.
The downloadable pdf is super extensive and really useful to use as a diary while doing the exercises from the book.

What I found a bit unfortunate was the somewhat flawed visual material in the book. The black and white photos are not very clear, but I also understand very well that budget-related choices have to be made when making such a book. Full color means a higher price tag, which in turn makes the book less accessible to people with a smaller budget. Choices, choices!

All in all, I am very enthusiastic about this book, this was my first introduction to Simone’s books, and I will soon purchase and read the previous two parts in the series!

Don’t Eat That! by Simone Mueller is available through Amazon, among others