The Other End of the Leash

Trisha's Book
"The Other End of the Leash"
published by Ballantine Books

"Quite simply the best book I have ever seen about training: humane, compassionate, intelligent, and startlingly new!"
Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson, Ph.D.,
author of Dogs Never Lie About Love.

The Other End of the Leash shares a revolutionary, new perspective on our relationships with dogs, focusing on our behavior in comparison with dogs. Zoologist Dr. Patricia McConnell looks at humans as just another interesting species, and muses about why we behave the way we do around our dogs, how dogs might interpret our behavior, and how to interact with them in ways that bring out the best in our four-legged friends.

Combining compelling stories, the natural history of dogs and humans, and advice about how humans can become better dog trainers by understanding their own behavior, The Other End of the Leash will help you make the most of life with your dog.

Here's what others have said about The Other End of the Leash:

"Patricia McConnell understands the behavior of dogs and their owners as Jane Goodall understands chimpanzees... Well written, insightful, and often moving... A must-read for everyone who holds one end of a leash."
Charles T. Snowdon, Ph.D.,
Chair, Department of Psychology, University of Wisconsin-Madison; Former President, Animal Behavior Society; Former Editor, Animal Behavior.

"The only problem with this book is that once you pick it up, you'll find it's impossible to put down."
Wayne Hunthausen, DVM,
Director of Animal Behavior Consultations, Coauthor of The Handbook of Behavior Problems of the Dog and Cat.

"In this highly readable book, Patricia McConnell provides readers with a new set of techniques for communicating with and understanding their dogs... This is a 'must read' for all people who share their lives with a dog."
Stanley Coren, PH.D.,
author of How to Speak Dog and Why We Love the Dogs We Do

"At Long Last, a book that will be a classic in both fields of dog behavior and literature. McConnell's clarity, insightfulness, charm, and humor shine throughout."
Claudia Kawczynska,
Editor in Chief, Bark Magazine.

"Patricia McConnell has written the You Just Don't Understand of the human-canine relation.... This humorous, well-written book tells us what to do and what to avoid based on years of studying dogs and their primate owners."
Frans De Waal, Ph.D.,
author of The Ape and the Sushi Master

Excerpt from "The Other End of the Leash" by Patricia McConnell, Ph.D.

It was twilight, and so it was hard to tell exactly what the two dark lumps on the road were. Cruising at 70 miles an hour on the Interstate, tucked between a station wagon and a semi, I was contently driving home from a herding dog trial. But as the black shapes got closer, my state of serenity shifted. They were dogs. Live dogs, at least for the moment. Straight out of a Walt Disney movie, an old Golden Retriever and an adolescent Heeler mix were trotting in and out of the highway, oblivious to the danger. Years ago I had watched a dog hit head on by a car and I'd give a lot to get the image out of my mind. It seemed inevitable that it was going to happen again.

I pulled off the road and parked behind another truck. Friends from the trial who were driving ahead of me had also seen the dogs. We exchanges terrified looks and ran back toward the dogs on our bank of the stream of traffic, dogs across the lanes as if across a flooding river. They looked friendly, used to people, perhaps even happy to see something with legs instead of tires. Traffic was moving fast across all four lanes. Visibility was poor. The traffic noise was deafening, there is no way the dogs could have heard us speak to them. At just the wrong time, the dogs started ambling across the road to us. We threw out our arms like traffic cops and lunged forward to stop them. They stopped, a second before a Miller Beer truck would have hit them. For a moment we stood there frozen, terrified. The responsibility of doing just the right thing, of somehow interfering in a way that saved their lives rather than insured their deaths weighed like a stone in our bellies.

We "called" to them at a break in the traffic, bending over in a play bow and turning our bodies away to encourage them to come to us. Then we would turn and stop them like traffic cops when the cars in the next lane loomed over the hill, coming so fast I was sure they'd be killed. This silent dance of life and death continued, our bodies turning back and forth, our only means of communicating through the noise of the traffic. It all seemed to happen at the speed of light, the dogs oblivious to the danger, moving forward toward us, then stopping, then backing up as we moved our own bodies to thread them through the traffic.

But that, plus a lot of good luck, was enough. Just by shifting forward with our arms out we could stop the dogs, and by shifting backward and turning away we could get them to move toward us. No leash, no collars, no control but the effect of our bodies, communicating "come" and "stop" with the turn of a torso. I still don't understand how they made it. But they did. I will forever be grateful for the responsiveness of a dog to the right visual signals.