Review: The Dog Listener

In this fascinating book, Fennell has adapted the techniques of iconic horse whisper, Monty Roberts, and applied them to our canine friends.

She makes several key observations.

Despite tens of thousands of years of living together, the dog and human look at life in fundamentally different ways. The dog remains a pack animal and is looking for a leader - which if it doesn't identify one, tries to take on the mantel itself.  It is this which often results in bad dog behaviour.

Another observation is that the dog can be best managed through request and reward ie making the dog want to do what you'd like it to do.

The way to do this is to adopt various rituals which re-establish the human as leader. A process she calls Amichen bonding. Elements of this include consistency, calm and strategically ignoring the dog.  It's worth saying that the approach has its critics.

Overall, hers is very much a behaviourist based approach for dealing with problem pets and I found it an interesting if occasionally repetitive read once you got into the case study chapters.

Verdict: Dog bonding guide.