The Other End of the Leash: Why We Do What We Do Around Dogs, by Patricia McConnell, is a fascinating and warm-hearted book about dog training by a woman with impeccable credentials. She’s one of my favorite writers, and I was pleased to notice recently that this book was #5 in popularity of all the dog training books that Amazon sells.

No wonder that this book ranks so highly…

It’s not another training manual, although it does have plenty of training advice.

Rather, it’s a book about understanding dog behavior, written by an academic with a a heart. She discusses many of the ways that we humans use body language in different ways than dogs do,  with the resulting misunderstandings. She tells us how we can better understand our own actions and dogs’ responses.

Since the book is written in a very personal and often amusing way, it’s a very good read. Patricia McConnell has worked for years as an animal behaviorist and has trained many dogs that their owners were about ready to give up on. She has done a lot with aggressive dogs.

If you were only going to buy one book on the behavior of dogs, make it this one. I’m sure you won’t be sorry!

Just click on the image or the title, The Other End of the Leash: Why We Do What We Do Around Dogs, to find out more at Amazon.

On  that dog training best seller list at Amazon: four of the top ten books were by Cesar Millan, three by Patricia McConnell, and three by other people. I am not much of a fan of Millan’s, though his emphasis on exercising dogs is good. An excellent analysis of his methods is at McConnell’s blog: http://www.theotherendoftheleash.com/cesar-millan-and-merial/ — it gets more interesting as it goes along, and I found some of the comments very well thought out too. I read this blog regularly, and recommend it to you, even if you aren’t interested in that particular article.

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