From the time she was five years old, author Lynn Stacy-Smith has lived side by side with dogs as her best friends and constant companions. Love, Laugh, Woof, a memoir and guide to being a compassionate forever dog owner, shares a collection of stories from the authors life with her dogs a tribute to how her dogs brought joy and adventure into her childhood and later life. It segues from her memories into a training manual and pet care book that helps potential pet owners decide if a dog is right for them, and the importance of training and teaching the dog the rules of living in a human world. Smith shares the responsibilities involved in bringing a pet into their lives, and she strives to help people become more compassionate and understanding dog owners. A combination of anecdotes and instructional materials, Love, Laugh, Woof offers a look at Smiths philosophy on dog ownership. Love Laugh, Woof is a way of life and a set of beliefs that she follows to be a loving, thoughtful and fair dog owner.

An enlightening and entertaining account of the unique relationship between humans and their pets. It offers a delightful insight into animal and human thinking and feeling. An essential companion for all dog lovers!

It is such a joy to work with a dog who proactively engages in behaviors while you build a relationship that will surprise you in its depth and versatility. Clicker training has proven to be the most effective means of developing a "Thinking Dog," one who offers behaviors in anticipation of a reward rather than a dog who has been trained only to wait for his owner's commands. One of the biggest obstacles the new clicker trainer faces, however, is his or her own history of training and habits of working with a dog. But you can make the transition once you understand how dogs learn and the mechanisms of operant conditioning. Learn from author Gail Fisher's crossover experiences as well as those of the hundreds of students she has helped make the change over the past thirteen years. You will learn:How dog training has evolved over the past 100 years, the strengths and weaknesses of various training styles, and to what extent you can intergrate your previous methods with clicker training. The particular challenges you will face as you crossover from whatever style of training you have used in the past (compulsion, luring, etc.) to clicker training. The detailed nuts and bolts of clicker training0́4from getting a behavior started, to methods of rewarding, to reducing the need to click and treat over time while still getting the results you want. How to work with dogs trained with force or harsh methods and change them into behavior-offering dynamos. What reviewers are saying ... MIDWEST BOOK REVIEW"Written by Gail Tamases Fisher, a professional dog trainer of over thirty years' experience, The Thinking Dog: Crossover to Clicker Training is a guide to using clicker training to develop a "thinking dog" who offers behaviors in anticipation of a reward, rather than a passive dog trained simply to wait for its owner's commands. Someone new to clicker training may find it difficult to break out of familiar routines; The Thinking Dog: Crossover to Clicker Training teaches one how to surpass one's own ingrained habits while learning the nuts and bolts of operant conditioning. "By definition, LLW [loose-leash walking] means there is no tension in the leash. This rule is absolute: Your dog may not pull and be successful. Any time your dog pulls and gets to move forward, pulling is reinforced. So from the moment you start training LLW, any time your dog is on leash, you are either in training, or using equipment that prevents pulling, such as a front-connection harness or head halter. Do not use a Flexi- or bungi-lead as they reward pulling." An excellent, easy-to-use manual for amateur and professional dog trainers alike, handily illustrated with black-and-white photographs." James A. CoxDOG WORLDWhen Gail Tamases Fisher attended her first clicker-training seminar in 1996, she was already a skilled trainer and the author of two books. She had built a successful career on the Volhard motivational method."I was happy with how I trained for the 20-plus years that I had used and taught this approach, believing it was by far the best way to train for both dogs and people," Fisher writes. As her skepticism vanished, she began incorporating clicker training into her methodology. She explains her decision in a balanced manner: "Nothing in this book is intended to denigrate any approach or diminish your success with whatever training method you have used."

#1 New York Times Bestseller “Funny and smart as hell” (Bill Gates), Allie Brosh’s Hyperbole and a Half showcases her unique voice, leaping wit, and her ability to capture complex emotions with deceptively simple illustrations. FROM THE PUBLISHER: Every time Allie Brosh posts something new on her hugely popular blog Hyperbole and a Half the internet rejoices. This full-color, beautifully illustrated edition features more than fifty percent new content, with ten never-before-seen essays and one wholly revised and expanded piece as well as classics from the website like, “The God of Cake,” “Dogs Don’t Understand Basic Concepts Like Moving,” and her astonishing, “Adventures in Depression,” and “Depression Part Two,” which have been hailed as some of the most insightful meditations on the disease ever written. Brosh’s debut marks the launch of a major new American humorist who will surely make even the biggest scrooge or snob laugh. We dare you not to. FROM THE AUTHOR: This is a book I wrote. Because I wrote it, I had to figure out what to put on the back cover to explain what it is. I tried to write a long, third-person summary that would imply how great the book is and also sound vaguely authoritative—like maybe someone who isn’t me wrote it—but I soon discovered that I’m not sneaky enough to pull it off convincingly. So I decided to just make a list of things that are in the book: Pictures Words Stories about things that happened to me Stories about things that happened to other people because of me Eight billion dollars* Stories about dogs The secret to eternal happiness* *These are lies. Perhaps I have underestimated my sneakiness!

Caldecott Honor winner Rachel Isadora's delightful introduction to the joys of having a dog stars a diverse ensemble of adorable kids and their beloved canine friends, in a style reminiscent of her popular I Hear a Pickle. Dogs are amazing! Dogs are a lot of work! And here is the perfect book to help a child understand what is involved in living with one. Lively illustrations show a variety of children learning what makes their dog tick, as they train them, care for them, and play with them. But most of all, it celebrates the fact that dogs are truly awesome companions--who are always happy to see you, and who can even sing, laugh and dream with you! Rachel Isadora's love for our canine friends shines through on every page, as she shares some of the best--and most exasperating!--things about having a dog.

'I Had a Black Dog says with wit, insight, economy and complete understanding what other books take 300 pages to say. Brilliant and indispensable.' - Stephen Fry 'Finally, a book about depression that isn't a prescriptive self-help manual. Johnston's deftly expresses how lonely and isolating depression can be for sufferers. Poignant and humorous in equal measure.' Sunday Times There are many different breeds of Black Dog affecting millions of people from all walks of life. The Black Dog is an equal opportunity mongrel. It was Winston Churchill who popularized the phrase Black Dog to describe the bouts of depression he experienced for much of his life. Matthew Johnstone, a sufferer himself, has written and illustrated this moving and uplifting insight into what it is like to have a Black Dog as a companion and how he learned to tame it and bring it to heel.

How do you draw your smelly dog? Your playful daddy? Your yummy mommy? See how one girl does it in this simple, clever picture book that's comprised of family portraits made out of objects. For example, her baby brother is so noisy—he's as loud as a whistle, a horn, and even a fire truck!—that she creates a picture of him with whistles for eyes, a horn mouth, and holding a fire truck. After the girl has described everyone in her family (including herself, in great detail), she asks, "What does your special family look like?" encouraging readers to create their own portraits. With a list of objects at the end of the book to use as a guide, this is the ideal choice for budding artists everywhere. Here's a wonderful exploration of simile and metaphor for young readers. And don't miss the companion book My Best Friend is as Sharp as a Pencil!

Chaser has a way with words. She knows over a thousand of them—more than any other animal of any species except humans. In addition to common nouns like house, ball, and tree, she has memorized the names of more than one thousand toys and can retrieve any of them on command. Based on that learning, she and her owner and trainer, retired psychologist John Pilley, have moved on to further impressive feats, demonstrating her ability to understand sentences with multiple elements of grammar and to learn new behaviors by imitation. John’s ingenuity and tenacity as a researcher are as impressive as Chaser’s accomplishments. His groundbreaking approach has opened the door to a new understanding of animal intelligence, one that requires us to reconsider what actually goes on in a dog’s mind. Chaser’s achievements reveal her use of deductive reasoning and complex problem-solving skills to address novel challenges. Yet astonishingly, Chaser isn’t unique. John’s training methods can be adopted by any dog lover. Through the poignant story of how he trained Chaser, raised her as a member of the Pilley family, and proved her abilities to the scientific community, he reveals the positive impact of incorporating learning into play and more effectively channeling a dog’s natural drives. John’s work with Chaser offers a fresh perspective on what’s possible in the relationship between a dog and a human. His story points us toward a new way of relating to our canine companions that takes into account our evolving understanding of the way animals and humans learn.