Richard A. Wolters (–1993)

he documents the process of his learning to fly gliders. His mother sees him fly a glider for the first time. He also documents his first soaring contest efforts and the first time he won a day at a contest.
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KIRKUS REVIEW
Tired of writing dog books, aging but longhaired Dick Wolters looks about for a new thing, is waylaid by soaring (some call it gliding or sailplaning). The present book is about how he writes The Art and Technique of Soaring (1971) for his ""swinging editor."" Thermal's exciting stuff with powerful reader identification. Wolters trains in New Jersey and finds that soloing is a long way off: a glider pilot must learn to think almost constantly, except for very rare moments when he's utterly alone in the silence of the great heights and can just sit there. Nearly all the rest of the time he's either searching for thermals (updraughts of warm air); being whipped above by a thermal; trying to get out of dead air; or is looking for a farm to land on. He's thinking and reacting hard because his life depends on it (no motor, you know). Wolters begins training cavalierly, gets sucked into developing more skills than he first wants, wins badges for height and distance flying, and finally enters the grueling ten-day National Championships. Now he's thinking of hot air ballooning -- but it doesn't seem half so thrilling as soaring, at least not to us. We're ready for our first lesson.… (lisätietoja)

This is a book for training a pet dog, rather than a working dog. Wolters believes that one should choose a pure-bred puppy, and he has a list of breeds that are better and worse with children.

Wolters believes that to have a really well-trained dog, it is essential to start with a puppy, and one who is exactly 49 days old. Very often, books have recommended not attempting serious training until the dog is one year of age, by Wolters argues that research has shown that training can begin much earlier, and is much more effective if it does. He describes the work of Dr. J. Paul Scott, Director of the Animal Behavior Laboratory at Hamilton Station of the Roscoe B. Jackson Memorial Laboratory in Maine. Usually, only 20% of puppies trained as Seeing Eye Dogs successfully completed the training. Dr. Scott started training the pups earlier, and got a 90% success rate!

Wolters describes the development of the puppy from birth, and explains why 49 days is the best age for the puppy to move to a new home and start training. He then works through a series of essential things for the dog to learn, and trick that are not needed but may amuse the owners and their friends. Wolters claims that the training can be carried out by a child, in this case 6-1/2-year-old Lane, under the supervision of an adult, and will produced a well-trained, well-mannered dog in 16 weeks. I can't recommend it from personal experience, but the would-be dog owner should certainly consider this one. I would certainly give this system a try if I were going to get a pup. Most of my animals have been middle-aged pets who were losing their home, but I would still give the techniques a try if I got a new dog. I would, of course, be more impressed if Lane had trained a beagle instead of a lab. I have always found it easy to teach beagles new things, the problem is convincing them that they ought to do them, and more difficult, continue to do them, just because I say so.

There is one thing that strikes me as odd. On the verso of the title-page, if says: "Championshp Labradors trained and supplied by Lisa Keplar and Sunspots Labradors of Raleigh, North Carolina." I am presuming that Wolters got the dog from them, and he means that they will train dogs for other people, but that is not perhaps the best wording.… (lisätietoja)