The Other End of the Leash


Book Description

Learn to communicate with your dog—using their language “Good reading for dog lovers and an immensely useful manual for dog owners.”—The Washington Post An Applied Animal Behaviorist and dog trainer with more than twenty years’ experience, Dr. Patricia McConnell reveals a revolutionary new perspective on our relationship with dogs—sharing insights on how “man’s best friend” might interpret our behavior, as well as essential advice on how to interact with our four-legged friends in ways that bring out the best in them. After all, humans and dogs are two entirely different species, each shaped by its individual evolutionary heritage. Quite simply, humans are primates and dogs are canids (as are wolves, coyotes, and foxes). Since we each speak a different native tongue, a lot gets lost in the translation. This marvelous guide demonstrates how even the slightest changes in our voices and in the ways we stand can help dogs understand what we want. Inside you will discover: • How you can get your dog to come when called by acting less like a primate and more like a dog • Why the advice to “get dominance” over your dog can cause problems • Why “rough and tumble primate play” can lead to trouble—and how to play with your dog in ways that are fun and keep him out of mischief • How dogs and humans share personality types—and why most dogs want to live with benevolent leaders rather than “alpha wanna-bes!” Fascinating, insightful, and compelling, The Other End of the Leash is a book that strives to help you connect with your dog in a completely new way—so as to enrich that most rewarding of relationships.




Puppies For Dummies


Book Description

Features a new 8-page color section The bestselling guide to making the most of puppy's first year Bringing home a puppy? This fun, friendly guide to puppyhood prepares you for this tough but terrific time. From the basics -- housebreaking, feeding, training -- to the latest on doggie day care, traveling with a puppy, and the new designer breeds, you get everything you need to help your puppy grow up to be a healthy, playful, well-mannered dog. Discover how to * Choose the perfect puppy for you * Socialize your puppy * Stimulate your puppy's growing mind * Use the latest training tools * Keep peace between kids and puppies




Pet-Specific Care for the Veterinary Team


Book Description

A practical guide to identifying risks in veterinary patients and tailoring their care accordingly Pet-specific care refers to a practice philosophy that seeks to proactively provide veterinary care to animals throughout their lives, aiming to keep pets healthy and treat them effectively when disease occurs. Pet-Specific Care for the Veterinary Team offers a practical guide for putting the principles of pet-specific care into action. Using this approach, the veterinary team will identify risks to an individual animal, based on their particular circumstances, and respond to these risks with a program of prevention, early detection, and treatment to improve health outcomes in pets and the satisfaction of their owners. The book combines information on medicine and management, presenting specific guidelines for appropriate medical interventions and material on how to improve the financial health of a veterinary practice in the process. Comprehensive in scope, and with expert contributors from around the world, the book covers pet-specific care prospects, hereditary and non-hereditary considerations, customer service implications, hospital and hospital team roles, and practice management aspects of pet-specific care. It also reviews specific risk factors and explains how to use these factors to determine an action plan for veterinary care. This important book: Offers clinical guidance for accurately assessing risks for each patient Shows how to tailor veterinary care to address a patient’s specific risk factors Emphasizes prevention, early detection, and treatment Improves treatment outcomes and provides solutions to keep pets healthy and well Written for veterinarians, technicians and nurses, managers, and customer service representatives, Pet-Specific Care for the Veterinary Team offers a hands-on guide to taking a veterinary practice to the next level of care.




Domestic Dog Cognition and Behavior


Book Description

This book highlights the state of the field in the new, provocative line of research into the cognition and behavior of the domestic dog. Eleven chapters from leading researchers describe innovative methods from comparative psychology, ethology and behavioral biology, which are combined to create a more comprehensive picture of the behavior of Canis familiaris than ever before. Each of the book’s three parts highlights one of the perspectives relevant to providing a full understanding of the dog. Part I covers the perceptual abilities of dogs and the effect of interbreeding. Part II includes observational and experimental results from studies of social cognition – such as learning and social referencing – and physical cognition in canids, while Part III summarizes the work in the field to date, reviewing various conceptual and methodological approaches and testing anthropomorphisms with regard to dogs. The final chapter discusses the practical application of behavioral and cognitive results to promote animal welfare. This volume reflects a modern shift in science toward considering and studying domestic dogs for their own sake, not only insofar as they reflect back on human beings.




For the Love of a Dog


Book Description

Yes, humans and canines are different species, but current research provides fascinating, irrefutable evidence that what we share with our dogs is greater than how we vary. As behaviorist and zoologist Dr. Patricia McConnell tells us in this remarkable new book about emotions in dogs and in people, more and more scientists accept the premise that dogs have rich emotional lives, exhibiting a wide range of feelings including fear, anger, surprise, sadness, and love. In For the Love of a Dog, McConnell suggests that one of the reasons we love dogs so much is that they express emotions in ways similar to humans. After all, who can communicate joy better than a puppy? But not all emotional expressions are obvious, and McConnell teaches both beginning dog owners and experienced dog lovers how to read the more subtle expressions hidden behind fuzzy faces and floppy ears. For those of us who deeply cherish our dogs but are sometimes baffled by their behavior, For the Love of a Dog will come as a revelation–a treasure trove of useful facts, informed speculation, and intriguing accounts of man’s best friend at his worst and at his very best. Readers will discover how fear, anger, and happiness underlie the lives of both people and dogs and, most important, how understanding emotion in both species can improve the relationship between them. Thus McConnell introduces us to the possibility of a richer, more rewarding relationship with our dogs. While we may never be absolutely certain what our dogs are feeling, with the help of this riveting book we can understand more than we ever thought possible. Those who consider their dogs part of the family will find For the Love of a Dog engaging, enlightening, and utterly engrossing.




The Dog Encyclopedia


Book Description

This complete catalog of all things canine is essential reading for dog lovers everywhere. From Beethoven to Toto, dogs have a special relationship with humans and are forever known as man’s best friend. The enduring loyalty and companionship of our four-legged friends is celebrated throughout The Dog Encyclopedia. Starting with their history, evolution, and anatomy, this beautiful book puts on a show of dogs in art and advertising, sport and service, and religion and culture. Famous dogs in fiction line up alongside heroic helpers. More than 400 dog breeds are introduced, from primitive dogs and working dogs to companion dogs and scent hounds. Each and every breed includes stunning photographs and fact-packed profiles detailing individual character, compatible owner traits, and breed-specific advice. If you’re bringing home a new pet, this guide comes crammed with top tips for a balanced diet, exercise, grooming, and training, as well as a health section on continuing care, identifying illness, and veterinary visits. This perfect pooch package is an indispensable owner's guide and an invaluable reference for budding dog whisperers.




What It's Like to Be a Dog


Book Description

"Dog lovers and neuroscientists should both read this important book." -- Dr. Temple Grandin What is it like to be a dog? A bat? Or a dolphin? To find out, neuroscientist and bestselling author Gregory Berns and his team did something nobody had ever attempted: they trained dogs to go into an MRI scanner -- completely awake -- so they could figure out what they think and feel. And dogs were just the beginning. In What It's Like to Be a Dog, Berns takes us into the minds of wild animals: sea lions who can learn to dance, dolphins who can see with sound, and even the now extinct Tasmanian tiger. Berns's latest scientific breakthroughs prove definitively that animals have feelings very much like we do -- a revelation that forces us to reconsider how we think about and treat animals. Written with insight, empathy, and humor, What It's Like to Be a Dog is the new manifesto for animal liberation of the twenty-first century.




Inside of a Dog


Book Description

As an unabashed dog lover, Alexandra Horowitz is naturally curious about what her dog thinks and what she knows. As a cognitive scientist she is intent on understanding the minds of animals who cannot say what they know or feel. This is a fresh look at the world of dogs -- from the dog's point of view. The book introduces the reader to the science of the dog -- their perceptual and cognitive Abilities -- and uses that introduction to draw a picture of what it might be like to bea dog. It answers questions no other dog book can -- such as: What is a dog's sense of time? Does she miss me? Want friends? Know when she's been bad? Horowitz's journey, and the insights she uncovered from studying her own dog, Pumpernickel, allowed her to understand her dog better, and appreciate her more through that understanding. The reader will be able to do the same with their own dog. This is not another dog training book. Instead, Inside of a Dogwill allow dog owners to look at their pets' behaviour in a different, and revealing light, enabling them to understand their dogs and enjoy their relationship even more.




Puppy Primer


Book Description

Raise that new puppy successfully with this understandable and user-friendly primer! Includes socialization, how to raise a confident puppy, children and puppies, basic obedience/manners, how to praise or correct, crate training, play biting, housetraining, through adolescence and problem- solving (submissive urination, home alone, barking, car sickness, more)




The Education of Will


Book Description

"An animal behaviorist recounts the story of how in order to help a troubled dog she was compelled to revisit painful memories about her own past in order to gain understanding into the impact of trauma on the brain, "--NoveList.