Through a Dog's Eyes

By: Jennifer Arnold

Narrated by: Jennifer Arnold

A stirring, inspiring book with the power to change the way we understand and communicate with our dogs. Few people are more qualified to speak about the abilities and potential of dogs than Jennifer Arnold, who for the past twenty years has trained service dogs for people with physical disabilities and special needs. Arnold has developed a unique understanding of dogs' capabilities, intelligence, sensitivity, and extra-sensory skills. Her training method is based on teaching dogs to make choices—as opposed to following commands—through kindness and encouragement rather than fear and submission, and her results are extraordinary. To Arnold, dogs are neither wolves in need of a pack leader nor babies in need of coddling; rather, they are extremely trusting beings attuned to their owners' needs and they aim to please. Relationships between dogs and humans go awry when we fail to understand our dogs and when we send them confusing, mixed signals. Arnold's firsthand experience—from what moved her to start her exemplary nonprofit and how she developed her methodology—guides this book and gives it a powerful emotional heft. Stories drawn from Arnold's life and the lives of the dogs who were her greatest teachers are convincing, unforgettable, and compelling testimony and make this book a heart-warming, captivating read that will forever change the way you see your dog by showing you the way your dog sees the world.

PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio.

©2010 Jennifer Arnold (P)2010 Random House

Critic reviews

“Transformative...[Arnold] shares her methodology and stories of canine intelligence, sensitivity, language comprehension, and prescience bordering on telepathy....Along the way, she emphasizes choice-based, positive-reinforcement-only teaching methods and shares valuable insights that every dog owner should know. Engagingly written with a perfect balance of science and observation, this book...is a worthy tribute to our canine friends.” (Publishers Weekly)

"Through vivid, memorable, moving stories, Jennifer Arnold provides a scientific argument for what dog lovers everywhere already know: Dogs love, dogs trust, dogs sense, dogs feel. And they deserve to be treated accordingly. This book’s message is simply the truth." (Sara Gruen, author of Water for Elephants)

"Arnold’s voice is assertive with experience—her insights into working with dogs are hard-won after years of close interaction....The author’s storehouse of anecdotal evidence is telling and entertaining, and her demolition of various alpha-model and negative-reinforcement teaching techniques is thorough and lofty.” (Kirkus)

A must read for any dog owner!!!

Would you listen to Through a Dog's Eyes again? Why?

I would and, in fact, am already half way through my second listen, love this book!

What about Jennifer Arnold’s performance did you like?

Ms. Arnold's narration was superb, given in the calm, serene, unhurried tempo and tone we should all use when dealing with our dogs, it was wonderful.

What insight do you think you’ll apply from Through a Dog's Eyes?

I will apply all insight provided by Ms. Arnold through her years of personal and invaluable professional experience. Thank you Ms. Arnold!

Any additional comments?

I loved this book, a true pet handling insight manual, and will rely on its wealth of information for as long as I own pets.

not bad, but there are better

I enjoyed the book, but would recommend "For the Love of a Dog: Understanding Emotion in You and Your Best Friend" by Patricia McConnell instead.

A Must For Every Dog Owner

I absolutely loved this! I'm in the process of training my first puppy, and couldn't have come across this book at a better time. Jennifer Arnold does a wonderful job of presenting the history of the dog/human relationship and modern research about the canine mind. She explains both the impressive capabilities of dogs and their limitations. Though her opinion is very clear throughout, she does a good job of backing it up not only with anecdotes, but also with scientific research.

It is important to be aware that this is not a training book that spells out specific steps for training your dog. There is a very useful, but brief, appendix that covers specifics of the author's training technique ("choice training"). The main purpose of the book seems to be teaching the reader to understand dogs and how dogs understand things, essential information that seems to be missing from all of the training books that I've read so far.

I am so glad that Jennifer Arnold chose to narrate this book herself. She does an excellent job, and it just felt right to hear her personal experiences and philosophies from her own lips.

Learned a lot

This is a different approach from other training books. It works with dogs nature not against it. I found this book very helpful.

Great book provides insight and instruction

Great, inspiring stories that will also teach you a ton about how to train your dog. Jennifer has done so much to help so many - dogs and people. I'm glad she decided to write a book.

Warm storytelling, poor scientific back up

Nice feel good book, but greatly lacking in scientific evidence. Read for warm fuzzies, not science of dog cognition.

very touching

Shows,us how to treat our pets in a loving way. The narrator has kindness in her voice.
Will order another book by this author. ....

Through a dogs Eyes

Inspirational,educational , first person account of what Readl dog love is. Told first person from in a Beautiful voice that spares no parts of the cutting edge that seeks to separate what dog lovers know about the bond of dog and humane. And a real life set of journeys that help the initiated have a chance and understanding what a force of nature the bond between human and dog' is when it's fleshed out. I challange you to be strengthen by her personal story, of perseverance, and vision.

Wonderful!

Information presented by the author/reader makes sense and has taught me a lot in how to care for my dogs. Thank you Miss Arnold!

eh

There are some interesting parts to this book, but overall it's eh -- a little boring, the narration a bit sanctimonious, and the reasoning inconsistent. Here's an example of inconsistency - in the first chapter, we're told that a dog can't learn that he shouldn't eat food that is left out on the counter or table (rather the dog will only become afraid of the particular place where he has been punished for eating). This inability to generalize would be a limitation indeed. Later we're told very fantastic things that dogs have learned to do (e.g., go through a sequence of events during and after an owner's seizure) that require much more sophisticated cognitive abilities than generalizing from table to counter.