Dog Training Books

The Other End of the Leash: Why We Do What We Do Around Dogs is a very popular and talked about book in the dog training community. With over 20 years of experience, Patricia McConnell, Ph.D. is an applied animal behaviorist and an adjunct professor at the University of Wisconsin and the co-host of a popular radio show.

This book isn’t a dog training guide to use in working with your dog. It doesn’t offer step-by-step instructions on how to teach basic commands, tricks, and other practicalities for training a dog. Instead, it focuses on animal behavior. McConnell sees humans as another interesting species related to chimpanzees and apes. To McConnell humans are primates and dogs are canids like wolves, jackals, and foxes. She drives the point that although humans and dogs share a unique relationship and live together, that we are different and communicate completely differently. As a result of this, a lot of our actions get lost in translation and can be misinterpreted by each other.

The Other End of the Leash is a mix of observations on anthropology, evolution, and a collection of stories. It offers good insight into the interactions between humans and dogs. It looks not only at dog psychology, but also focuses on human behavior and how dogs perceive our actions. It suggests ways that we can better interact such as changing our voice and body language to avoid sending mixed signals that confuse our dog. Often our natural behaviors and good intentions are misunderstood.

However, the book is not without its critics. Many feel the book a mere collection of stories that focuses too much on McConnell and her own dogs rather than have more of her clients. Some readers find the book too self gratifying and are annoyed of McConnell’s constant references to being an applied animal behaviorist and having a Ph.D. Other people feel the book deals way too much about primates, citing example after example of how they behave differently from dogs. And yet others find the book too talkative and wordy lacking in substantive information on how to put the concepts in the book to use.

Nonetheless, most people will find the book humorous and intelligent. It would be particularly useful for those who are fairly new to dogs. If want to get a better idea of what goes on inside a dog’s head and you are open to changing your own behavior in an attempt to reduce miscommunication with your dog, then The Other End of the Leash will be nice read for you.