Treat Everyone Like a Dog: How a Dog Trainer's World View Can Improve Your Life

by Karen B. London, Patricia B. McConnell (Foreword)

They’re hiding in plain sight. People who are really good at influencing the behavior of those around them walk among us. The people in question are dog trainers, and they know how to get others to do what they want them to do and how to get them to stop doing things that bother them. Most importantly, they know how to do it in a kind, loving way that can improve the relationships they have with those other individuals. What dog trainers do is based on principles, ideas, and techniques that are well-known in their field, but not so well-known outside of it. Dog trainers know how to teach dogs to turn around and come running to them even if the dog was chasing a squirrel, to drop a bone on request, and to greet people at the door politely instead of jumping up on every visitor. If they can successfully teach these skills and many more to another species, don’t you want to know what they know about influencing behavior? Dr. Karen London has been a dog trainer and canine behaviorist for nearly 25 years, and applying the lessons from her professional experience to the rest of her life has made her interactions with people better and more effective. The suggestion to treat everyone like a dog is a result of the love and respect she feels for people. Treating people as good dog trainers treat dogs is a thoughtful, kind approach to influencing behavior whether you call it teaching or training. What if you could influence people as well as dog trainers influence dogs? You can, and Treat Everyone Like a Dog tells you how. Inside you will • A great way to stop your coworkers from complaining incessantly • Techniques to keep young kids from grabbing candy and gum in the checkout line • That using play is a powerful way to get your spouse to clean up • How to change your roommate’s Monday-morning grumpiness into more cheerful feelings • The reason asking people certain types of questions will influence their behavior to your benefit Treat Everyone Like a Dog will make you laugh, make you think, and motivate you to act. It discusses—in plain English—dog training principles and explains how to apply them more broadly. It’s an entertaining read that includes loads of real-life examples. Inspiring, funny and incredibly practical, this book will change the way you interact with the people around you and improve your relationships with them.

Genres: Dogs

375 pages, Kindle Edition

Published November 7, 2020

Reviews

[Stephen Wallace · Rating 4 out of 5]

I like dog books, including dog training books. And I like psychology books. So I think I liked this book. I think I think I liked it, instead of know I liked it, as it was stuck between both worlds for me. The dog training examples were strong and good, but the human examples, like her using the principles to help guide her children, were not as strong for me.

If I wanted to use the dog training information out of the book to use, I don't think it was organized well enough that it could easily accessed. An index on that would have helped. So I enjoyed the book well enough reading through it in one pass, but would have preferred just reading a dog training book from her by itself with a good organization that would easily allow me to go to what I wanted to work on.

[Jonathan Pevarnek · Rating 3 out of 5]

Fascinating book, and not the one I thought it was going to be.

Something that's become very obvious to me while learning more about dog training has been the ways that can bleed into human relationships. I'm sure my therapist thinks it's hilarious that I can think about a situation more clearly by asking "what would a dog displaying those behaviours be going through" than when I'm dealing with a person, but that's a real thing that's happened multiple times now.

I expected this book to have more notes like that, of being able to frame the behaviour of our fellow people better, or probably some clear ideas of how to apply positive reinforcement to the people around you (e.g. how do you adapt the idea of a bridging stimulus when you have much more descriptive language to use), but it wasn't much of that. Mostly, this book felt like talking about dog training methods and throwing out the occasional example of "and here's how you could use that when dealing with people". There were plenty of amusing stories from the author about when she used training methods with her own kids or with people around her, but mostly I think this would be a useful book if you want a primer on the techniques in modern dog training and hearing examples relating to people is helpful to you.

[Anne Howe · Rating 5 out of 5]

A great book..wish I had read it before ever dating, marriage, having children and had had it in graduate school. More common sense than is common. Karen London's writing style is friendly, entertaining