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What it is
Stop! Sit! and Think is Charles P. Eisenmann’s 1968 book about his dogs and his approach to teaching them. Its eighteen chapters begin with London and range through intelligence, teaching, discipline, safety, care, instinct, problems and tricks.
It is both an explanation of his ideas and a personal account of life with the dogs, with practical discussions alongside memories and stories.
What you’ll find in it
Chuck moves between explaining his approach, making his case for it and telling stories from his life. He introduces London and the later dogs, describes how he thought his ideas developed, discusses everyday problems, and includes photographs, captions and selected reports of demonstrations.
One thread running through the book is his distinction between training and teaching. He saw training as a foundation of control and habit. What he called teaching or education went further: he wanted to challenge a dog with changing circumstances, rather than simply repeat a familiar routine.
What it tells us
The book lets us hear how Chuck explained his work and how many parts of life with the dogs he connected with it. Alongside London, he writes about dogs including Thorn, Toro and Little London, their family relationships, public demonstrations, film work and earlier experiences.
These stories show which moments mattered to him, how he linked London with the development of his ideas, and how he wanted readers to understand the dogs’ performances and everyday lives. His descriptions of their vocabulary, reasoning and other abilities tell us how he understood what the dogs were doing.
Following the stories
Some episodes are memories written years later, so their dates and details are not always clear. The demonstration reports he includes also sometimes leave us without the full original article or its date.
Chuck reused dog names across generations, which can make it difficult to follow every dog and family relationship. Where that remains unclear, it is best to leave the question open rather than assume that a familiar name always means the same dog.