I went through 3 of them or so when I worked on a thinning crew. I don't understand why they are considered more dangerous. Except sometimes when you're going hard and don't look on the other side and hit a rock and then have a temper tantrum because you have to stop and sharpen. You just put the dog against the little tree pull the trigger and cut at an angle. For the bigger ones you run the saw with the right hand with the dog against it and push the tree with the other hand. It isn't meant to cut big wood with. I learned to run saws by starting out with a bow bar on a McCulloch XL Pro something. I did see one kick back and hit my partner in the head, but he had a tin hat on so was ok. He was running it up the tree to cut the branches out of his way.