Description
Price: $26.00 - $19.16
(as of Mar 03, 2025 21:27:29 UTC – Details)
A New Scientist Best Book of 2023
A guide to cultivating a shared life of joy and respect with our dogs.
Who’s a Good Dog? is an invitation to nurture more thoughtful and balanced relationships with our canine companions. By deepening our curiosity about what our dogs are experiencing, and by working together with them in a spirit of collaboration, we can become more effective and compassionate caregivers.
With sympathy for the challenges met by both dogs and their humans, bioethicist Jessica Pierce explores common practices of caring for dogs, including how we provide exercise, what we feed, how and why we socialize and train, and how we employ tools such as collars and leashes. She helps us both to identify potential sources of fear and anxiety in our dogs’ lives and to expand practices that provide physical and emotional nourishment. Who’s a Good Dog? also encourages us to think more critically about what we expect of our dogs and how these expectations can set everyone up for success or failure. Pierce offers resources to help us cultivate attentiveness and kindness, inspiring us to practice the art of noticing, of astonishment, of looking with fresh eyes at these beings we think we know so well. And more than this, she makes her findings relatable by examining facets of her relationship with Bella, the dog in her life. As Bella shows throughout, all dogs are good dogs, and we, as humans and dog guardians, could be doing a little bit better to get along with them and give them what they need.
From the Publisher
Publisher : University of Chicago Press; First Edition (September 6, 2023)
Language : English
Hardcover : 304 pages
ISBN-10 : 022672171X
ISBN-13 : 978-0226721712
Item Weight : 2.31 pounds
Dimensions : 5.5 x 1.5 x 8.5 inches
Jay B. –
Brava to Pierce
Jessica Pierce continues to shine the light on who our dogs really are and how to emulate their innate dogness to be better humans.
Amazon Customer –
Not a training guide
I was expecting a little more “hands on” approach to canine training, but the author lives in Boulder, Colorado, where I lived during my undergraduate years, so I should have known better. This book is all about the ethics of how we interact with dogs. It’s thought provoking and it did make me take a step back from my grandfather’s dog training methods. It is worth the read, but not as a how-to manual; more of a how-not-to manual, which is equally valuable.
Marc Bekoff –
An important book with a strong message about how to let dogs be dogs and have great lives
Jessica Pierce is one of the leading canine bioethicists in the world. In her latest book she carefully applies her deep and broad knowledge of ethics and dog behavior so that all caninesâhomed and free-ranging dog beingsâcan have the best lives possible, and so too can their human companions or the humans with whom they have contact. When dogs and humans form and maintain close, give-and-take relationships, itâs a win-win for all. In this landmark and readable book, Pierce tells us just how to do it.
KT –
Good humans
This book is less about bending your dog to your will and more about understanding your dogâs behaviors and needs from itâs point of view. Some may not agree with the author, but reading it with an open mind, I learned quite a bit. Allowed me to look at his behaviors that I would normally see as bad in a different light.