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Your Dog Is Your Mirror

The Emotional Capacity of Our Dogs and Ourselves

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Your Dog Is Your Mirror

By: Kevin Behan
Narrated by: Patrick Lawlor
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About this listen

In Your Dog Is Your Mirror, dog trainer Kevin Behan proposes a radical new model for understanding canine behavior: a dog’s behavior and emotion, indeed its very cognition, are driven by our emotion. The dog doesn’t respond to its owner based on what the owner thinks, says, or does; it responds to what the owner feels. And in this way, dogs can actually put people back in touch with their own emotions.

Behan was originally trained under the dominance theory by his father, John Behan, one of the first in America to make dog training a career. But he eventually came to believe that what made the modern dog trainable was not the dominance hierarchy but the dog’s ability to work as a cooperative group member in the hunt. This ability then evolved into an emotional capacity that perfectly complements human emotion.

Behan demonstrates that dogs and humans are connected more profoundly than has ever been imagined - by heart - and that this approach to dog cognition can help us understand many of dogs’ most inscrutable behaviors. This groundbreaking, provocative book opens the door to a whole new understanding between species, and perhaps a whole new understanding of ourselves.

©2011 Kevin Behan (P)2020 Brilliance Publishing, Inc., all rights reserved.
Animals Dogs Emotions Dog Training Heartfelt
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Critic reviews

“Beautifully written and deeply engrossing, Your Dog Is Your Mirror is destined to change the way we think about dogs.” (Lee Charles Kelley, dog trainer and best-selling mystery novelist)

“There are scores of books on how to change the outward behavior of a dog. But Kevin Behan challenges us to look deeper, to examine the dog’s behavior as an emotional reflection of its owner, revealing our own unresolved issues. Your Dog Is Your Mirror is beautifully written, with entertaining and insightful examples from throughout Kevin Behan’s remarkable career. This book will forever change your relationship with your dog, and you will never look at your dog in the same way again. It is a must-read for every committed dog owner.” (Kyra Sundance, internationally best-selling author of 101 Dog Tricks and 101 Ways to Do More with Your Dog!)

Your Dog Is Your Mirror is a very thought-provoking book that will force you to reconsider who we are and who dogs are and why we are so attracted to one another. Kevin Behan calls upon his extensive experience with our best friends and makes the important point that in the emotional interactions between dogs and humans, it’s not the human reading the human in the animal but the animal reading the animal in the human. Whether you agree with Kevin’s provocative theories or not, the age-old adage that no one knows you like your dog clearly rings true. I learned a lot from this wide-ranging and unique book.” (Marc Bekoff, University of Colorado, author of The Emotional Lives of Animals and The Animal Manifesto)

What listeners say about Your Dog Is Your Mirror

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Really interesting theory

As a newbie dog trainer I found this book really interesting. I can see how energy affects dogs so it would make sense to take that into account when training more than is currently done. I looked up Kevin on YouTube after finishing this book, hoping to find videos which would put everything into context for me (visual learner) but sadly didn’t find anything. I have still taken away a lot of useful information from this book and respect Kevin’s 50 plus years on hands on experience even though there were one or two things I wasn’t 100% sold on.

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Great listen

Really unique take on dog behaviour and our human dog relationships. Well worth a listen. Definitely recommend

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Couldn’t finish book as he’s giving you so much information it was a bit over my head.

Couldn’t finish book as he’s giving you so much information it was a bit over my head.
Author obviously knowledgeable but book was not for me.
Not bad narration

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life changing

not sure for the reluctant but they won't be found here anyway. Healing capacity of the book is very impressive.

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Loved the comparisons to self

Loved the comparisons to ourselves and how this displays in our dog's behaviour. Struggled to underatand some of the more 'technical' aspects as it seemed the key information was lost in a sea of many jargon related words and phrases that clearly the author had lived and breathed to the point of natural fluency but me as the listener kept having to rewind and replay in order to try to work out what it all meant and where it fitted in to the picture. That said the it made a thoeoughly interesting and thought provoking book.

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very interesting

makes you think about the owner - dog relationship, a lot of interesting ideas

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Some useful but hard to listen to

Very hard to listen to, but a few of the chapters were interesting n helpful in understanding my dogs

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Must listen for any dog owner!

Having read all Cesar Millan books I’d come to realise that certain methods didn’t work for my chocolate Labrador. Having accepted his madness when on a wood walk Loki started being the most calm and chilled dog at my work. As mentioned in the book, dogs are our reflection. They can help us to be more self aware and accepting the parts we suppress so we can grow together. Great book!

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Fabulous book with great insight!

I wasn’t sure what to expect with this book at first, with this interesting title. How overjoyed I was to hear about the author‘s fascinating insights into his dog and himself. This book is a must-read for all dog owners or those wanting to understand themselves better. Really well read too with nice pace and intonation that kept me interested from start to finish. Thank you!

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Overly complex language for this thesis

I love the theory of K. Behan’s, and found it very valuable and I will certainly use this information.
Sadly, the writing wasn’t great; too much detail to get points across and ‘grandiloquent’ at times I felt like I was listening to a scientific text book (and as a former scientist I don’t want that ahaha).
The narrator was too fast but I slowed the playback and it was much easier to listen to.
I will heartily recommend the book as there is a lot of very good ethical narratives and viewpoints. A rather good essay toward the end too.
I especially loved the personal stories pepper throughout.
Well done and thank you.

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