As dog owners, my wife Jenny and I were — I won’t mince words here — totally clueless. We picked out a puppy without first researching breeds or their personality traits. We didn’t insist on meeting the sire. We went on curb appeal alone, choosing looks over temperament. We ended up falling in love at first sight with an adorable yellow Labrador retriever pup who quickly morphed into a 97-pound steamroller of unbridled energy. We named him Marley and spent the next 13 years trying to get him under control, never quite succeeding.
I, only half jokingly, dubbed Marley the world’s worst dog, and in many ways he was. He crashed through screens, dug through drywall, gnawed furniture, swallowed jewelry, stole food off the kitchen table, and rooted through trash. He yanked at his leash and drank from the bathtub. He joyfully lunged at guests, leaping up on them with muddy paws to plant wet kisses on their faces. He sniffed crotches and flung drool through the air. Not even dog lovers appreciated it.
What I now realize is that Marley wasn’t the worst dog, only one of the worst trained dogs. Jenny and I ran our house like a democracy, and Marley soon learned he had an equal vote. Obey orders? No way! He never did quite get the whole chain-of-command thing.
That’s where Arden Moore’s The Dog Behavior Answer Book could have helped us in a big way. Had we had Arden’s commonsense expertise then, we would have better understood what motivated Marley’s bad-boy behavior and been able to formulate a strategy to change, or at least temper, it. Good, solid advice from knowledgeable experts is the first step to having a reliably well-behaved pet who will bring joy and pleasure to its owners, not frustration and heartache.
Then again, had I followed Arden’s wise advice in this book, Marley might have been so good I never would have been tempted to write a book about him. No doubt about it, bad dogs make for good reading. But good dogs are what every pet owner wants —and deserves. Arden Moore and her team of animal-behavior experts can show you the way.
John Grogan
Author of Marley & Me: Life and Love with the World’s Worst Dog
