Last October, we held a ‘How dogs work’ workshop, during which I recommended a great book by Kim Brophey. With her LEGS system, she has revolutionized dog training and behaviour.
Both team member Sarah Shephard and I have completed her course to become a family dog mediator. Thank you to Sarah, who reviewed Kim’s book for us.
click on the links to find out more about Kim https://www.dogdoorcanineservices.com/
her book is https://www.amazon.fr/Meet-Your-Dog-Game-Changing-Understanding/dp/1452148996

If you have had dogs all your life, if you are preparing for the arrival of your very first dog or if you are chewing the cud about inviting a dog into your family, Kim Brophey’s Meet Your Dog is for you. It’s a revelation, an inspiration and essential reading for anyone who is committed to making their world a better place for dogs.

The author, who is an Applied Ethologist and a practising dog behaviour consultant in the US, explains L.E.G.S – a new, scientifically underpinned system she has masterminded, to help us understand what motivates and affects dogs to behave as they do.

The acronym L.E.G.S stands for Learning, Environment, Genetics and Self. Kim describes it as a ‘simple framework for understanding the great range of factors that affect our dogs’ behavior’.

In Meet Your Dog each one of the L.E.G.S pillars is covered in a separate chapter. It brings the reader the latest relevant science in a fun, relatable and easy-to-digest format.

LEARNING covers your dog’s experiences and education.

ENVIRONMENT explores your dog’s external world.

GENETICS unravels the role of DNA in giving your dog its specific characteristics.

SELF looks at how individual factors such as health status, age and sex play a role in behaviour.

The section on genetics is especially brilliant as it clarifies what your dog was originally bred to do. Kim explains the ten primary genetic breed groups and the reader can then identify which group their dog belongs to and gain a real insight into why their four-legged family member likes to do what he or she does! At the beginning and end of each chapter Kim highlights why you may fall in love with each breed group and what you may find hard to live with. She provides home life, public life, and personal life scores as well as a relationship survival key and practical tips.

Whether you have or are thinking of taking on a guardian breed, a terrier, a toy dog, a herding dog or any one of the other breeds that humankind has ‘designed’ this book will help you to understand each dog’s behaviour much more clearly, enabling you and your family to build a positive and harmonious human-canine relationship.

I can’t recommend this book enough: It’s fun, educational and oh so informative. When you finish it, you simply want to turn back to the first page and devour every word again. I read it from cover to cover twice and became so hooked on Kim’s substantial knowledge, expertise, philosophy, and capacity to explain how to navigate common sense, that I went on to take the superb L.E.G.S Applied Ethology Family Dog Mediation Professional Course.

In fact, this is why I have lapsed with my book reviews – I have been so distracted with my online learning!

We already had two dogs when our rescue puppy Juniper came into our lives. Having had up to four dogs together in past we thought it would be a walk in the park to integrate Juniper into our little pack of two terriers, but we had some teething trouble, literally……

Feeling Outnumbered by Karen B London and Patricia B McConnell arrived in the post as a gift from a good friend. Not only was it a superbly informative but it was also a cathartic experience to learn that what we were going through was relatively normal: It’s never wise to assume that dogs should instantly like each other when they have been forced to share the same household.

Feeling Outnumbered delivered exactly what it said on the cover ‘how to manage and enjoy a multi-dog household.’ With just 42 pages, split into four chapters it’s an unintimidating read, the authors get straight to the point and it’s bursting with practical advice.

In ‘laying the foundation’ the authors guide the reader on how to work with each dog individually. I particularly liked the section ‘life is not always fair and that’s OK’ as it helped me to stop feeling guilty that I was spending more time with the puppy than with my two senior terriers.

Real life scenarios provide clear and logical guidance on how to manage key elements of day-to-day life such as being comfortable alone, greeting visitors and teaching one dog to be patient while another is getting attention. There’s also a very useful chapter on taking on a new dog and how to make initial introductions.

Prevention is always better than cure and Feeling Outnumbered provides some great pointers to help those with multi dog households stay out of trouble. It’s also a very realistic book with a closing section on signs that may indicate a serious problem and how, in some circumstances, rehoming may be the most responsible and the safest option.

Feeling Outnumbered has helped me manage a rather stressful period in this household and best of all it has given me better understanding of how to help my three hounds live in harmony. Thank you, Karen B London and Patricia B McConnell, and thank you to my good friend Cessi too.

Many good things come in small packages* and this includes Doggie Language by Lili Chin.

This cute little hardback volume will look smart on any shelf or coffee table and makes for irresistible reading too.

Described on the cover as ‘a dog lover’s guide to understanding your best friend’ it is filled with superb illustrations, showing clearly how your dog may express him or herself and what the visual signs may mean within a given context.

Think of it as an essential cross-species language translator; section by section you can check what your dog’s eyes, ears, mouth, tail and posture are signalling and learn how to tell the difference between a happy and relaxed or stressed and anxious dog.

It’s a book for all ages and you will never tire of looking at Lili Chin’s wonderful artwork. The ultimate benefit is that by understanding your dog’s language the better you will be able to provide them with an even more relaxed and comfortable living environment.

*With the exception of my Juniper who at 30kg and growing, is very much of the good thing in a large package variety!

Team member Sarah Shephard, our UK representative has kindly agreed to write a book review each month (dog related). This helps not only you, the reader in finding a useful book but also Sarah in her quest to learn everything ‘dog’ and with that the need to buy lots of dog books. For Sarah’s first review (and one I have not got!) she has chosen to help guardians at the beginning of their dog’s life, the puppy, who can resist a bundle of cuddly cuteness (obviously us humans seeing as our relationship goes back a few thousand years (18,000 Payne et al 2018) but the evidence is even longer.

We hope you enjoy Sarah’s review and find it useful.

Life Skills for Puppies by Helen Zulch and Daniel Mills

We hadn’t had a puppy in the house for 10 years when we committed to giving a home to 12-week-old French rescue Juniper (who is now a sleek, silken, big, clever, and beautiful, one-year-old, with enormous paws, a ridiculously long tail and a huge, loving heart….).

Despite having had dogs all our lives my husband and I felt our knowledge of puppyhood and training was rusty; so much is changing about what the world knows about how dogs communicate, how they learn and how they respond to circumstances on an emotional level, and I wanted to bring myself up to speed on the best possible ways to give Juniper a secure and loving home where she could blossom with confidence.

A knowledgeable and well-read friend (I am ever grateful to you Cessi) recommended several books to prepare us for Juniper’s arrival and Life Skills For Puppies by Helen Zulch and Daniel Mills fast became a favourite.

Don’t be deceived by the fact that it’s a thin volume because it is packed with golden nuggets of advice, based on positive reinforcement. It is divided into ten sections, each covering a key skill to help your puppy to ‘practice appropriate behaviour choices within day-to-day situations’. The chapters include: ‘I have confidence’, ‘I like to be touched’, ‘I can be calm’ etc.

Written in a clear, compelling and uncomplicated style, Life Skills For Puppies is illustrated with helpful photographs so that you can properly visualise the skills you are enabling your puppy to learn. There are tips and worksheets for each section too, to help you track progress.

So keen and hooked was I that I read the book twice before Juniper had even arrived in our lives! And then I asked my husband to read it too. It gave us both the confidence we needed to give Juniper positive and consistent learning experiences from the very first day.

It was also the start of my knowledge-gathering obsession with all things dog behaviour and training! Giving Juniper a home has enriched my life in so many ways (and I do hope she might say the same about us if she could speak!) and Life Skills For Puppies set us on a great path from the outset.

If you are about to give a home to a puppy or want to give a great gift to a friend who has a new puppy, this book is essential reading in my view. It will help to steer you and your puppy towards a happy, harmonious and lifelong relationship from day one.