Dog behavior is their language; misinterpreting it leads to mutual misunderstanding.

Sometimes dogs don't understand what we want them to do because we don't understand them.

Taking the dog's point of view is essential to forming deep, respectful, and reciprocal bonds.

I recently learned of a highly-acclaimed book by force-free dog trainer Simon Wooler titled More Than Just a Dog: Understanding, loving and living with dogs: An essential guide for humans. Among Wooler's goals is for people to form deep, respectful, and reciprocal bonds with dogs by demystifying the science behind dog behavior—a goal I fully share—and to educate them and explain how they learn, how they tell us what they want and need from us, and the factors that influence the sort of relationship they form with us. Here's some sage advice for making meaningful connections with our canine companions and for them to return the favor.

Marc Bekoff: Why did you write More Than Just a Dog and how did you come up with the title?

Simon Wooler: I was approached by the publishers, HarperCollins, when I was working with Sophie from Romania, the profoundly fearful Romanian rescue who had been adopted by author and broadcaster Rory Cellan-Jones and his wife Diane Coyle. Rory had posted about Sophie on social media and her story went viral. I was posting alongside, explaining the approach to helping Sophie and giving context to her behaviour and the progress we were making. The title started off as just a working title, but then it seemed right. It summed up the importance of the relationship many, if not most of us, have with our dogs. But as important for me was the subtitle. I didn’t want to write a ‘how to train’ book. I wanted to help people understand more........

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