TO BE OR NOT TO BE YOUR DOG'S BEST FRIEND

This blog advertises my book On the Same Team: Dog Owners Coaching Their Best Friends.  A Kindle version is available at Amazon, other e-book versions will be available on other websites, and a paperback version is in the works.  Veterinarian Jon Morrow, DVM, owner of Animal Hospital of Las Cruces, responded to a draft with high praise: “I feel honored to be your veterinarian!”  My book description follows:

 

       The unusual starting point of On the Same Team: Dog Owners Coaching Their Best Friends is your dog’s nature.  However you acquire a new dog—buy from a breeder, adopt from a rescue organization or pound, or bring in a stray—, your new dog is a social animal.

 

Without you, he would learn to live in his family, then his pack.  He would learn how to support and protect it.  He would seek to please those who guide him.  He would learn what is right and what is wrong as he is trained by parents and leaders.  With you, if you understand these natural tendencies and develop them, your dog can live in your family and your pack (even if you are the only member), support and protect it, seek to please you, and learn right from wrong.  On the Same Team will help you prepare for your dog to become your best friend and a gratifying part of your life.

 

The beginning of a good relationship between you and your dog—one based on trust, respect, and affection—is an understanding of dogs and your dog, and some reflection on what it means for you to assume responsibilities for caring for and coaching him.  There are preparatory steps, and On the Same Team gives guidance, advice, and tips in taking them.  You need to select or accept a blend (aka “mix”) or breed suitable to your home, neighborhood, and lifestyle.  A Foxhound is no dog for a city; a Pomeranian is no dog for the country.  An adorable puppy may become an adult too large, strong, active, or aggressive to fit in with your family and your visitors.  You need to provide both material basics which cost (food, water, shelter, health care), and emotional and social basics which are time- and energy-consuming (security, routines, exercise, play).  These basics make for a good relationship and everything desirable in companionship and obedience.

 

Only when you have begun such a relationship should you think of modifying your dog’s behavior.  On the Same Team advocates “training” your dog as part of building and enhancing your relationship with him.  It views “training” as a cooperative, not an adversarial, effort because it relies on your dog’s natural desire to please you.  So you can do what is best for both of you by coaching and guiding him, not commanding and punishing him.  Loud scoldings and harsh discipline make him fearful and distract him from learning.  Instead, On the Same Team urges you to skip the rough, tough stuff which dogs dislike; to treat your dog like your best friend; and to let your coaching—understanding, patient, firm, but gentle—make it easy for him to learn.

 

Along the way, On the Same Team tells stories about and shows pictures of my dogs (and cats) to illustrate my points.  I end with a horse story just because it was a one-of-a-kind relationship between that horse and this rider.