Why we do what we do around dogs.

This book shares a revolutionary, new perspective on our relationship with dogs, focusing on our behavior in comparison with that of dogs. An Applied Animal Behaviorist and dog trainer with more than twenty years' experience, Dr. Patricia McConnell looks at humans as just another interesting species, and muses about why we behave the way we do around our dogs, how dogs might interpret our behavior, and how to interact with dogs in ways that bring out the best in our four-legged friends.

After all, although humans and dogs share a remarkable relationship that in unique in the animal world, we are still two entirely different species, each shaped by our 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.

The Other End of the Leash demonstrates how even the slightest changes in your voice and in the way you stand can help your dog understand what you want. Once you start to think about your behavior from your dog's perspective, you'll understand why much of what appears to be doggy disobedience is simply a case of miscommunication.

Inside you will learn:
* 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 lead to trouble
* 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 trouble
* How dogs and humans share personality types — and why most dogs want to live with benevolent leaders rather than "alpha-wanna-bes"

(Hardcover, photos, 240 pgs)

Excerpt from the book:

All dogs are brilliant at perceiving the slightest movement that we make, and they assume that each tiny motion has meaning. So do we humans, if you think about it. Remember that minuscule turn of the heat that caught your attention when you were dating? Think about how little someone's lips have to move to change a sweet smile into a smirk. How far does an eyebrow have to rise to change the message we read from the face it's on — a tenth of an inch?

You'd think that we would automatically generalize this common knowledge to our interactions with our dogs. But we don't. We are often oblivious to how we're moving around our dogs. It seems to be very human not to know what we're doing with our body, unconscious of where our hands are or that we just tilted our head. We radiate random signals like some crazed semaphore flag, while our dogs watch in confusion, their eyes rolling around in circles like cartoon dogs.

These visual signals, like all the rest of our actions, have a profound influence on what our dogs do. Who dogs are and how they behave are partly defined by who we humans are and how we ourselves behave. Domestic dogs, by definition, share their lives with another species: us. And so this is a book for dog lovers, but it's not only a book about dogs. It's also a book about people. It's a book about how we're the same as our dogs and how we're different from them.