Publication day for “Listening To Dogs: How To Be Your Own Training Guru” was exciting and revealing. And successful. The book is at the top of the e-book training lists, has broken onto the top 100 list of Kindle Non-Fiction Books and is chasing after a search-and-rescue book for the top spot on the Animals and Pet Care List. I’d love to get to number one. Barnes & Noble is putting the book up today. This the first of my 26 books that I have published without the benefit of a big publisher and it is fascinating process, there is nothing pushing the blog but the blog and the social media pages. And me and my podcast.

I got another penetrating look yesterday at the plight of the dog lover seeking good, sensible and realistic information about how to train their dogs. Whenever I set out away from my life, my farm, the blog, my own civilized Facebook community I feel as if I’m entering a war zone, the animal world mirroring the fragmentation and rigidity and anger of the political world. How difficult for anyone who loves a dog to get some gentle and helpful information about it. The loudest voices of the animal world are broken up into dogmatic and warring camps filled with dogma and unyielding ideologies. People who disagree are demons, callous, or worse, abusers of animals, evil brutes, clueless, even Devils. There are countless people who proclaim themselves absolute experts with a lock on the right way, yet the plight of dogs in America seems to be worsening all the time in many ways.

Many claim to understand the inner workings of dogs, but seem unable to talk to people in a civil and open way. They remind me to listen not to judge, to be open, not closed, to turn inward when it comes to training my dogs, not outward. The thoughtful and the reasonable are driven to the edges out there, bullied into silence or driven to quiet and more coherent places. I don’t listen to people who tell me what to do or claim to have all of the answers. I don’t believe there is only one way to do anything meaningful, certainly not the training of dogs. I am learning to listen to me as well as my dogs.

It seems that many advocates of training theories and philosophies seem almost cult-like in their inability to listen or disagree in a civil way. Some are even inventing their own Orwellian language around dog training – food-aggressive dogs are no longer food-aggressive but “resource-hoarders,” and how could anyone be disturbed about the hoarding of resources? One trainer told me I was a resource-hoarder, and I said, sure, but I don’t bite.

But if you love dogs, you have to worry that dogs are not doing  well in our current system of incoherent and confusing training philosophies.  Dog bites are skyrocketing, according to the Center for Disease Control, up 47 per cent a year. Lawsuits are now into the billions and hundreds of thousands of dogs are on anti-anxiety medication and anti-depressants. Millions are returned to shelters each year because people have no idea what real dogs are like or how to handle them. With all of these experts and all of these books, videos, movements, certainties, why are so few dogs trained well, and why do so many people feel they are not able to train their own dogs, even as they spent vast amounts of money on gurus and experts? I think our corporate culture has elevated the notion of the specialist, from dog training to law to medicine. If we are not paying a lot of money for information, we think it must be no good.

We are losing confidence in our own instincts and judgements, in civics as well as animal training. We are forced into intellectual ghettos like the “left” or the “right.” We must choose from one theory of dog training, another kind of ghetto of the mind, a world filled with labels and, increasingly, with righteous anger. I know a lot of farmers up here who train their dogs well and lovingly and without turning to theatrical TV shows to guide them. My forebears did it as well. And good dog training is never angry. I feel sorry for dogs who live with angry people. I have never met an angry person who has a grounded and well-trained dog.

In “Listening To Dogs,” I write about my own efforts to create an alternative, spiritual and successful life with my dogs. And I am not a trainer, but a writer about animals who has been listening to them for years, and, I think, hearing them. You will never learn to listen to your dog if you listen to people telling you what to think and claiming to know what your dogs think. Training is not about obedience for me, but is a profoundly satisfying exercise in communication and listening.

In my happy life with dogs, there are no gurus, trainers, experts or behaviorists telling me what to think and do. I have had great and painful defeats and joyous and spectacular successes, and many of you have followed both. It is not always possible to do this, but it is often possible and it is well worth a try. Training has too been hijacked by people selling complex expertise for money and by unyielding ideologues who have no idea how to communicate with people, let alone animals. There are many good and conscientious trainers, and we often will need them in our lives with dogs, but it seems to me we need to ask ourselves if we can do better for ourselves, in our own homes with our own dogs. Maybe we aren’t as dumb or needy as we are led to believe. We can even use our own words, in plain language. I feel strongly about this book and it is also an  exciting new adventure for me, there is nothing promoting it but me, and this book costs less than a cup of coffee or tea. Brave new world. Consider giving it a try, I’d like to get to the top of the list today and make some points about animal advocacy and new directions in writing. If you read it and like it, share it and consider reviewing it. I hope it is helpful to you. It costs $.299, less than a cup of coffee.  I’m continuing the discussions on Facebook today, they are all revealing, good and bad.

And thank you for your great support. There is nothing but this blog and its attendant communities pushing this book to the top of the best-selling lists in just a day. Wow.