Right I have got up to the bit where I always stop and give up, once more.
And then one day it happened. Without thought or effort, I could find the cool white space within myself where no ego existed, where I had a goal but also no goals at all, where there was only the dog who accepted my invitation to dance, and the world fell away.
OMG! Please someone tell me she stops with all this Flowery Cr*p, as otherwise I'm going to give up on this book for the last time.
Yet again, initially I can relate to what she is saying. I was also that child under the table trying hard to be a dog. I have sat and watched other's and seen their dogs and horses Praying for understanding and I have seen the bitterness and hopelessness in their animals eyes as that understanding never comes. But now she seems to have drifted into some sort of flowery, self analysing, self appreciating, subliminal messaging stuff, which makes me so uncomfortable and surprisingly angry .
Please tell me she gets back to the REAL stuff soon and stops all this subliminal nonsense, as otherwise I'm not going to make it past page 40 again.
Jules if its not to your taste leave it! Gosh! Its the way she writes. She is a thinker and she writes what she thinks. I can understand it being fluffy and flowery to some. I don't think those parts really register to me because I can speed read bits like that.
For me, what really hits home with her is how we misunderstand gestures, traditionally 'bad' behaviours, and how we assume we know what the dog is doing and how its being 'deliberately' *anything* when 'deliberately' is just not a word associated with a canines understanding of the world. The old adage of 'he'd wee'd on the floor/eaten the roast joint off the worktop/ripped up my slippers' and when I came home he KNEW because he was slinking about 'looking guilty' etc etc....
Those are the parts that strike gold with me. Skip to page 203 for a second... read the next two pages. I just think that sort of thing is so utterly facinating and really very new in canine writing.
But if you loathe it gosh don't torture yourself further
Di
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The boys!
Read: Wylanbriar Dog Blog on the website: Updated! 1st February 12´!
I ordered this after reading about it on another thread here and only started reading it a few days ago.
I haven't got too far yet, but I'm glad I'm not the only one to find some of it a bit flowery - feels a bit like an over-long introduction so far and as though I'm waiting for the meat of it to begin. Although there's a nagging feeling I could be missing the point by thinking that!
It sounds like I'm just beyond where Jules was getting stuck, so I'll have to power on too - off to sneak a peek at p 203 first though!
No Di, I'm doggedly (pun very much intended) continuing.
So many knowledgable "doggy" people think it is a wonderful book, so many think it has bought about some great epiphany and I want that too. I want to have new and wonderful revelations to help me reach a greater understanding of our canine friends. So I shall plough on regardless and hope that somehow the points made don't go straight over my head.
So many knowledgable "doggy" people think it is a wonderful book, so many think it has bought about some great epiphany and I want that too
I started to say this to you yesterday but I think how someone feels about this book might depend on the sort of dog person they are at the start.
If someone was a no nonsense doggy person I imagine they either pick it up and think it's a load of tosh or they have a great epiphany.
I read this a few years back, cover to cover on a plane. My view was it was a *nice*read, I found the style quite flowery too and self indulgent in parts from the author, dare I say it was very american in tone (was she?)
I don't remember that paragraph you've quoted above Jules - I must have skim read those bits.
I do remember picking titbits from it but certainly nothing revolutionary because i suppose I've always leaned towards being more soft and accepting (and ridiculously analytical by nature!) as a pet owner anyway than say a more 'doggy' person and to me that was what the book was about in a nutshell.
Probably due a re-read from me really.
" If someone was a no nonsense doggy person I imagine they either pick it up and think it's a load of tosh or they have a great epiphany. "
There is noone more no nonsense than me, and to be honest I sit somewhere slightly short of a great epiphany. I think that each chapter has something in it, especially for the more novice dog trainer or owner. Something to go 'bloody hell' at.... I see a hundred LF posts a month that could have a greater understanding of 'why' and 'how' and 'where do we go from here' by reading the book. But, possibly, moving through the parts that are more biographical than factual or educational.
Anyway, horses for courses, it has been enjoyed here both by myself and Allan.
Di
____________
The boys!
Read: Wylanbriar Dog Blog on the website: Updated! 1st February 12´!
So ok.....I skipped to page 203 and read from there.
My first and over-riding thought was "My parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles had it right all along".
We were taught from very young, to respect the animals, ALL the animals, from that rotten Cockeral who would chase us and try to score our backs with his spurs as we ran away, to the ancient cat who slept in a paper bag on the dining room table. If one of their grumpy dogs growled (which quite often they did for various reasons) we were told to stop pestering them, come away and leave it alone.
On the odd occasion curiosity got the better of us kids, as it does, and while we thought no one was looking, we would continue to try to make friends with the growling dog and invariably two things happened. One...we got snapped at/bitten and Two....we got a clump from a grown up, who obviously HAD been watching, and we were told it was our own stupid fault the dog went for us, as it had warned us first and we hadn't listened. It was NEVER the dogs fault in their eyes, always ours and that was the same if the old cat scratched us, or the cockeral ripped our clothes and skin.
This way of thinking has changed so much over the years and dogs are now expected to be either Small Furry Humans or Perfectly Behaved/Controlled Robotic Beings. I guess I just don't see them that way and never have thanks to the way I was bought up.
But yes I do agree with you Di, I do think there are many people, especially New to Dogs people or people who believe in the often quoted Dominance Theories, who could learn a fair bit from this book.... That's if their hearts and minds are open enough though.
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I just skim read the uber gushy bits like that 
