McConnell, Patricia B.

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McConnell, Patricia B.

PERSONAL:

Education: University of Wisconsin—Madison, Ph.D.; certified in animal behavior.

ADDRESSES:

Home—WI. Office—Dog's Best Friend, Ltd., P.O. Box 447, Black Earth, WI 53515. E-mail—[email protected].

CAREER:

University of Wisconsin, Madison, adjunct associate professor of zoology; Dog's Best Friend, Ltd., Black Earth, WI, owner. Host of Calling All Pets, Wisconsin Public Radio.

WRITINGS:

Dog's Best Friend's Beginning Family Dog Training, Dog's Best Friend (Black Earth, WI), 1996.

(With Brenda K. Scidmore) Dog's Best Friend's Puppy Primer, Dog's Best Friend (Black Earth, WI), 1996.

(With Karen B. London) Feeling Outnumbered: How to Manage and Enjoy Your Multi-dog Household, Dog's Best Friend, Ltd. (Black Earth, WI), 2001.

The Other End of the Leash: Why We Do What We Do around Dogs, Ballantine Books (New York, NY), 2002.

For the Love of a Dog: Understanding Emotion in You and Your Best Friend, Ballantine Books (New York, NY), 2006.

Author of column for Bark magazine. Consulting editor, Journal of Comparative Psychology. McConnell's works have been translated into other languages.

SIDELIGHTS:

Patricia B. McConnell is an expert on dog behavior and the communication between canines and professional trainers. As a certified applied animal behaviorist, she focuses on identifying, evaluating, and treating significant behavior problems in domestic dogs. She is a frequent writer and speaker on issues related to dog behavior, and is host of Calling All Pets, a Wisconsin Public Radio program, syndicated to more than one hundred stations across the country.

McConnell is an advocate of close emotional connection and communication between dogs and humans, and she expounds on this deep level of interaction in her books. In The Other End of the Leash: Why We Do What We Do around Dogs, she explains how humans can improve their communication and interaction with their canine companions. She draws on her own professional experiences as a dog trainer, as well as the work of other professionals, to explore how dogs may be misinterpreting actions and other signals from their owners. She notes that physical contact, such as hugs, may be threatening to a dog, and explains that simply breaking visual contact with a dog is often enough to make a dog stop demanding attention. She also criticizes trainers who suggest that owners establish dominance over their dogs, suggesting that other methods of behavior control and interaction produce better results. A Publishers Weekly writer concluded: "This is a helpful guide for pet owners by a specialist who clearly loves her work."

With For the Love of a Dog: Understanding Emotion in You and Your Best Friend, McConnell relates truelife stories, scientific evidence, and expert advice designed "to show how understanding emotions in both people and dogs can improve owners' relationships with their pets," according to a Publishers Weekly reviewer. The author goes beyond the scope of average dog training books and explores how owners can learn their pets' "language" by recognizing and correctly interpreting signals and behavior from their dog. She explains the meaning of various types of canine postures, facial expressions, and even subtle tongue movements that communicate particular messages. Above all, McConnell asks owners to carefully "observe their own dogs and to understand the emotions behind their actions, both good and bad," remarked Booklist reviewer Nancy Bent. McConnell provides "sophisticated explanations" of "different types of behavior, as well as insight into how bad behavior can be prevented," noted Cleo Pappas in Library Journal.

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Booklist, August 1, 2006, Nancy Bent, review of For the Love of a Dog: Understanding Emotion in You and Your Best Friend, p. 22.

Internet Bookwatch, December, 2006, review of For the Love of a Dog.

Library Journal, September 1, 2006, Cleo Pappas, review of For the Love of a Dog, p. 167.

Publishers Weekly, May 20, 2002, review of The Other End of the Leash: Why We Do What We Do around Dogs, p. 59; June 12, 2006, review of For the Love of a Dog, p. 45.

Science Books & Films, January 1, 2007, James W. Kalat, review of For the Love of a Dog, p. 17.

Tribune Books (Chicago, IL), May 25, 2003, review of The Other End of the Leash, p. 6.