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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 Biological Sciences Dogs Emotions Outdoors & Nature Personal Development Pets & Animal Care Science Dog Training Inspiring Heartfelt

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)

All stars
Most relevant  
Relaxing voice. Wonderful inspirational content. Must listen. Will listen to more than once to make sure I understand it well. Gaining so much knowledge and perspective from a very smart and in tune man.

My dog is my mirror

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Puts into words everything you ‘know’ about your relationship with your dog. An absolute must read 💕🐾

Fantastic book.

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I think Kevin’s idea’s are genius but not fully comprehensible in this book. I would love too spend some time with this man!

Not 100% convinced but Ioved it

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I loved this book, such an amazing look into the behaviour, thoughts and feelings of humans and how we can harness them to have the best life ever for ourselves and our fur babies 🙏

A must read!

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on the one hand I wondered at times if this writer/dog trainer may have been on drugs whilst he wrote this but the more I listened I realised the depth to the writer's knowledge. There are many pearls of wisdom to be gained and so many moments of enlightenment. Kevin really is at a higher level of thinking but really enables the reader to think on many different levels about how dogs and humans think and feel and interact with each other.

many pearls of wisdom and moments of enlightenment.

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Didn’t expect a biography about the writer’s “dad”. Too much “dad” boasting. His “dad” is a movie star handsome apparently :p

Load of bullshit

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highly recommend for dog lovers and anyone wanting to understand your dog and consequently yourself better. wonderful book backed by a lifetime of experience and very insightful and eye opening research. absolutely loved it!

absolutely fascinating!

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Well iam 100% shore that I will have to re read this book even though iam disabled and my 2 bitches are my companion dogs
iam 62 and all my life I have had animals dogs cats ferrits turtles lizards horses rats sheep and I have loved them all 🖤💜🖤💜

Your Dog is Your Mirror by Kevin Behan

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was an interstic topic but dragging out. Loong unnecessary background stories... I didn't like the narrator reading it in a monotonous voice.
I bailed on the last 2 hours, it's just too boring and repeating.

dragging out

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I enjoyed the the author's new to me theories about the mind of dogs. I found it quite intriguing.

Interesting

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