When Pets Come Between Partners


Book Description

How to Keep Love—And Romance—In the Human/Animal Kingdom of Your Home When you're fighting about the dog, is it really about your in-laws? When your boyfriend says, It's either me or the cat," isn't there a way you can keep both? And what can you do when your girlfriend's Chihuahua can't get along with your Boxer, but you want to move in together? Dr. Gold to the rescue, with a practical guide for couples who just want a peaceable kingdom. Sometimes animals take the place of people in relationships, so when we argue about the hamster, we may really be arguing about the children or an old boyfriend. Feelings of jealousy, anger, control, guilt, and fear can all play themselves out through our pets. Dr. Gold explains how conflicts over pets are often signs of deeper conflicts between couples, and shows how you can get at the root of these conflicts, bring them into the open and resolve them."




The Way of Cats


Book Description

The Way of Cats is a way of playing games with our cat. These communication, training, and affection games are fun and easy to learn. Then we have well-behaved and happy cats.




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.




Cesar's Way


Book Description

Cesar Millan—nationally recognized dog expert—helps you see the world through the eyes of your dog so you can finally eliminate problem behaviors. From his appearances on The Oprah Winfrey Show to his roster of celebrity clients to his reality television series, Cesar Millan is America’s most sought-after dog-behavior expert. But Cesar is not a trainer in the traditional sense—his expertise lies in his unique ability to comprehend dog psychology. Tracing his own amazing journey from a clay-walled farm in Mexico to the celebrity palaces of Los Angeles, Cesar recounts how he learned what makes dogs tick. In Cesar’s Way, he shares this wisdom, laying the groundwork for you to have stronger, more satisfying relationships with your canine companions. Cesar’s formula for a contented and balanced dog seems impossibly simple: exercise, discipline, and affection, in that order. Taking readers through the basics of dog psychology and behavior, Cesar shares the inside details of some of his most fascinating cases, using them to illustrate how common behavior issues develop and, more important, how they can be corrected. You'll learn: • What your dog really needs may not be what you’re giving him • Why a dog’s natural pack instincts are the key to your happy relationship • How to relate to your dog on a canine level • There are no “problem breeds,” just problem owners • How to choose a dog who’s right for you and your family • The difference between discipline and punishment • And much more! Filled with fascinating anecdotes about Cesar’s longtime clients, and including forewords by the president of the International Association of Canine Professionals and Jada Pinkett Smith, this is the only book you’ll need to forge a stronger, more rewarding connection with your four-legged companion.




Dogs Are from Neptune


Book Description

In 41 essays the author of the classic work on dog behavior, Culture Clash, helps us understand what really motivates dogs, corrects our wrong-headed notions about canine behavior and explains how to solve problems. Taken from actual case files. Enlightening




What Shamu Taught Me About Life, Love, and Marriage


Book Description

While observing exotic animal trainers for her acclaimed book Kicked, Bitten, and Scratched, journalist Amy Sutherland had an epiphany: What if she used these training techniques with the human animals in her own life–namely her dear husband, Scott? In this lively and perceptive book, Sutherland tells how she took the trainers’ lessons home. The next time her forgetful husband stomped through the house in search of his mislaid car keys, she asked herself, “What would a dolphin trainer do?” The answer was: nothing. Trainers reward the behavior they want and, just as important, ignore the behavior they don’t. Rather than appease her mate’s rising temper by joining in the search, or fuel his temper by nagging him to keep better track of his things in the first place, Sutherland kept her mouth shut and her eyes on the dishes she was washing. In short order, Scott found his keys and regained his cool. “I felt like I should throw him a mackerel,” she writes. In time, as she put more training principles into action, she noticed that she became more optimistic and less judgmental, and their twelve-year marriage was better than ever. What started as a goofy experiment had such good results that Sutherland began using the training techniques with all the people in her life, including her mother, her friends, her students, even the clerk at the post office. In the end, the biggest lesson she learned is that the only animal you can truly change is yourself. Full of fun facts, fascinating insights, hilarious anecdotes, and practical tips, What Shamu Taught Me About Life, Love, and Marriage describes Sutherland’s Alice-in-Wonderland experience of stumbling into a world where cheetahs walk nicely on leashes and elephants paint with watercolors, and of leaving a new, improved Homo sapiens.




My Old Dog


Book Description

“No Dog Should Die Alone” was the attention-grabbing — and heart-stirring — headline of journalist Laura T. Coffey’s TODAY show website story about photographer Lori Fusaro’s work with senior shelter pets. While generally calm, easy, and already house-trained, these animals often represent the highest-risk population at shelters. With gorgeous, joyful photographs and sweet, funny, true tales of “old dogs learning new tricks,” Coffey and Fusaro show that adopting a senior can be even more rewarding than choosing a younger dog. You’ll meet endearing elders like Marnie, the irresistible shih tzu who has posed for selfies with Tina Fey, James Franco, and Betty White; Remy, a soulful nine-year-old dog adopted by elderly nuns; George Clooney’s cocker spaniel, Einstein; and Bretagne, the last known surviving search dog from Ground Zero. They may be slower moving and a tad less exuberant than puppies, but these pooches prove that adopting a senior brings immeasurable joy, earnest devotion, and unconditional love.




Odd Couples


Book Description

The remarkable and unique ways that male and female animals play out gender roles in nature While we joke that men are from Mars and women are from Venus, our gender differences can't compare to those of many other animals. For instance, the male garden spider spontaneously dies after mating with a female more than fifty times his size. And male blanket octopuses employ a copulatory arm longer than their own bodies to mate with females that outweigh them by four orders of magnitude. Why do these gender gulfs exist? Introducing readers to important discoveries in animal behavior and evolution, Odd Couples explores some of the most extraordinary sexual differences in the animal world. Daphne Fairbairn uncovers the unique and bizarre characteristics of these remarkable species and the special strategies they use to maximize reproductive success. Fairbairn also considers humans and explains that although we are keenly aware of our own sexual differences, they are unexceptional within the vast animal world. Looking at some of the most amazing creatures on the planet, Odd Couples sheds astonishing light on what it means to be male or female in the animal kingdom.




When Dogs Heal


Book Description

The best medicine may not always be found at a pharmacy or in a doctor’s office. Sometimes it comes in the form of a four-legged friend. Three well-known leaders in their fields—award-winning dog photographer Jesse Freidin, adolescent HIV+ specialist Dr. Robert Garofalo, and LGBTQ advocate and journalist Zach Stafford—offer a refreshing, beautiful, and unique portrait of HIV infused with a deep message of hope. Each extraordinary profile shows the power of the incredible bonds between humans and their canine companions, whether that means combating loneliness and stigma, discovering the importance of unconditional love, overcoming addiction, or simply having a best friend in a time of need. When Dogs Heal shares the stories of a diverse set of people who are thriving and celebrating life thanks to the compassion and unconditional love of their dogs. A portion of the proceeds from this book benefits Fred Says, an organization dedicated to financially supporting HIV+ teen health care.




Travels With Casey


Book Description

A New York Times bestseller and People “Book of the Week”: This hilarious, charming road trip through canine-loving America is “essential reading for dog lovers and armchair travelers” (Library Journal, starred review). “I don’t think my dog likes me very much,” New York Times Magazine writer Benoit Denizet-Lewis confesses at the beginning of his cross-country journey with his nine-year-old Labrador-mix, Casey. Over the next four months, thirty-two states, and 13,000 miles in a rented motor home, Denizet-Lewis and his lovable, moody canine companion try—with humorous and touching results—to pay tribute to the most powerful interspecies bond there is, in the country with the highest rate of dog ownership in the world. On the way, Denizet-Lewis—“a master at effortlessly weaving bits of research into his narrative” (Los Angeles Times)—meets an irresistible cast of dogs and their dog-obsessed humans. Denizet-Lewis and Casey hang out with wolf-dogs in Appalachia, enter a dock-jumping competition in Florida, meet homeless teens and their dogs in Washington, sleep in a Beagle-shaped bed and breakfast in Idaho, and visit “Dog Whisperer” Cesar Millan in California. And then there are the really out there characters: pet psychics, dog-wielding hitchhikers, and two women who took their neighbor to court for allegedly failing to pick up her dog’s poop. Denizet-Lewis’s memoir “is a lot like Casey…fun, sweet, and a little neurotic” (Chicago Tribune)—a delightfully idiosyncratic blend of memoir and travelogue coupled with a sociological exploration of a dog-obsessed America. Travels With Casey is “a thoroughly engaging and often hilarious investigation of the therapeutic nature of our relationships with dogs” (Booklist).