Who will benefit from this book? Anyone who has a dog, really. It’s a program designed for teenaged or adult dogs (from 6 months to old age – no dog is too old to change). It will help you with the more common issues of demanding behaviours, separation anxiety, dogs jumping up onto you or other people, furniture, kitchen counters, stealing, digging, and bullying (which includes biting, nipping and ‘pinching’). It’s a good basis for reactive dogs and has some insights for taking your reactive dog out and having him around other dogs. There’s also a section devoted to dog body language, and meet and greet, that will help you in that direction regardless of whether or not your dog is reactive. Being raised by humans means that many dogs haven’t learned the social cues or niceties that can make the world of difference in their engagements with other dogs. 

We’ve taken on dogs and brought them into our human world. We treat them in the way that we might treat another human, and interpret their behaviours through the lens of human behaviour - but they’re dogs. We are causing a mass of misunderstanding and confusion which stresses our dogs. Their needs are so different to the situations that we put them into, yet we don’t give them the guidance that they need to be able to cope in our world. We need to behave in a way that makes sense to them.

You’re not a bad parent for not understanding your dog better – you’re just not a dog.