A friend loaned me the book Happy Hound by Susan C. Daffron, and I had a chance to read it last weekend.
What a complete joy this book provides!
There are lots of behavior and training books available, and most every one I've read leave me feeling totally incompetent as a pet owner. As much as I follow the prescriptive advice, problems still persist: barking, marking, and terrorizing the cats, to name just a few issues. Susan's clean writing style and total honesty about the ups and downs of finding the right balance in living with a pet conveys the feeling that you're sitting at a kitchen table together having a conversation. She lets you know that she's been there, and that many times it's a trial and error process of finding just the right approach that works for you and your dog.
Most all of her guidance is supported by her own experiences in living with four rescue dogs. She also has extensive experience in working as a veterinary technician and shelter volunteer. Her "on the ground" knowledge of the realities of living with a shelter pet is what shines through in her book. While the book is positioned to provide guidance and support for living with a shelter dog, I found every piece of advice is useful for my puppy-mill dog too. She recommends approaches that have worked for her, but also suggests alternatives in case they don't work in your particular situation. As she says, the relationship we have with our dogs is imperfect, but "there are only imperfectly wonderful, wacky, charming, cute, heroic, and loving dogs, and the equally imperfect humans who love them."
May you find perfection in your own imperfect relationships.
