k9katet wrote:Is Syn Alia a person? What is the manual about? General training or a specific sport?
Are the Michael Ellis videos the ones on Youtube that Leerburg put out?
Heather, that was a great summary about Susan Garret and the other books you're reading.
Syn Alia is a training system called SATS (Syn Alia Training System<g>). It's been developed by a woman named Kayce Cover, who has worked with all kinds of animals, including exotics, over the years. It is general training, in the sense that it's a communication system. The main difference is that she has a very specific method of doing the intermediate bridges, where you provide a constant sound such as "g g g g g g g g" to communicate the bridge, as opposed to saying, "good...good." According to her, there are certain sounds that are more communicative to the dog/animal than the typical word bridges most of us use.
The important thing, to me, is developing a language to communicate with your dog, regardless of which particular approach or system one uses. She advocates a very detailed way of communicating with a dog, or any animal, for example, explaining to it how things will go at the vet when it needs to have an injection and is terrified of the vet's office. She has videos on her site that demonstrate her technique of communicating this kind of information to an animal.
Anyway, I haven't read the introductory manual yet, but I expect I will get some good stuff out of it. Here's a link to her site in case you're interested in checking it out
http://www.synalia.com/
RE: the ME videos...no, these aren't the free videos available thru Leerburg, but the DVDs he and Leerburg have developed. Again, his stuff isn't all that different from other marker training approaches, but I like his system and am learning from them. It's very nice to see someone who focuses on the protection sports use so much positive training.
I'm with you...I love learning about training and get a lot out of books.
. Keeps me outta trouble, tho.
And once they finished the book, they master the skill. 
Judith Van Neerland Dutch Shepherds 
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. OTOH, I am always interested in anything that can help me to communicate even better with my dog, and so I'm open to checking it out.
My favorite are on behavior. I too have read K. Pryor's "Dont shoot the Dog" but it has been a while. Some of Kohler's training books, even some dog trick books. Smoak's agility and utility training books. Several on aggressive dog behavior training. 
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