For the Love of A Dog
Understanding Emotion in You and Your Best Friend
by Patricia McConnell
I’ve read several other books by Patricia McConnell, so it was no surprise to me when I began reading, “For the Love of a Dog”, that I became completely immersed. Patricia has a wonderful way with intertwining scientific facts and information with everyday life. This book is a beautiful blend of both, with the science of the brain (both human & canine), and stories and examples from her own experiences with dogs, both her own and of her clients.
Patricia explains and proves that dogs do share many of our same emotions. Though this is something I have always believed, to finally see scientific proof that indeed our canine companions share these emotions with us, is like a breath of fresh air. Finally, we, the lover of dogs, can debunk the naysayers.
“For the Love of a Dog” is a must read for anyone that has any contact with dogs. To begin to understand the emotional ability of an animal that humans have chosen to live with for thousands of years. For dog trainers this book is of utmost importance, in that it explains, not only how a dogs emotions are shown, but also why a particular dog may behave the way it does, and how to deal with that. It also explains and shows, with wonderful photographs, the expressions of canine emotion, and compares that to the same show of emotion on human faces. The similarities are simply astonishing! Of course body signals from dogs are also discussed and shown in this amazing book.
This book has enlightened me on one of my own dogs. Petey is an amazing little Jack Russell Terrier that I adopted when he was about 8 months old. When I adopted Petey I had grand visions of him becoming a champion agility dog. Physically he was perfect for it. For years I’ve trained Petey in agility, he is truly an amazing athlete. His level of speed, accuracy and advanced skills are those of some of the best agility dogs in the country. So why is it that Petey is not an agility champion? Why is it that in all of his years of training and trialing he only has three successful qualifying agility runs? Finally after reading “For the Love of a Dog”, I now understand my little Petey better. I knew that he was stressing at trials, there were all the classic signs of it; marking on the course, yawning, the zoomies, looking like a scared puppy and not moving. Yet I continued to try with Petey. I thought maybe it was me stressing, therefor sending stress signals to him. I read books on relaxation for competition. I competed with Maddie who loves to play agility, though not quite the athlete Petey is, she taught me it was all about the fun, and to relax. I tried again with Petey, utilizing the lessons in relaxation I had learned, and still no success. I would go long periods of time where I didn’t trial Petey because the little guy would stress so badly that I felt like it was cruel of me to want him to compete. Now, I really do understand, thanks to Patricia and this wonderful book. Petey, more than likely will never be able to compete successfully in agility. No matter how much skill and confidence he shows when training, the stress of a trial is just too much for him to emotionally overcome, probably due to his very early weeks and months of life, when he did not get the proper socialization and emotional confidence needed to compete in the overly stimulating atmosphere of an agility trial.
There is so much more I have learned from this book, I could go on and on. I urge everyone who loves dogs to pick up a copy of “For the Love of a Dog”. No dog lovers library could be complete without it.
Here is a link to Patricia’s website where you can buy a copy right now.
http://www.patriciamcconnell.com/product/for-the-love-of-a-dog-understanding-emotions-human-dogs
You might also want to consider some of Patricia’s other books, as they are all equally fascinating!
Here is a link to Patricia’s blog -
http://www.theotherendoftheleash.com/
