"Your book changed my life..." department
By Karen Pryor - August 11, 2009
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June 12, 2009
Here’s a story from the Internet by Christina Waggoner Karen smiled and shook my hand and said, "Which one?">
"Don't Shoot The Dog" I barely managed to> get out.
In Chris’es mind, there was only one. She adds, “sorry, Karen-if it helps, I bought "Lads Before The Wind" at that Expo! Karen must have thought I was a bit soft in the head, but she was so polite and still thanked me.”
So, Chris, a few years later, let me explain!
Asking you "Which one?" was a private joke, and a little impolite of me. My FIRST book, in 1963, was "Nursing Your Baby." It was the first book ever written about breast feeding for mothers themselves, rather than a medical audience. It sold over a million copies in the next twenty years and I spent a lot of time working with La Leche League and helping mothers. For many years when someone came up to me and said "I loved your book" or "Your book changed my life" it was Nursing Your Baby they were talking about. So sometimes when a young woman comes up with that opening I still do wonder which book she is talking about.
Dog trainers of course seldom know me as the author of Nursing Your Baby. I should have remembered that. However Don't Shoot the Dog had a very slow start, and was hardly known to anyone for a long time. I remember vividly when for the very first time it was DSTD the person was talking about.
It happened in a shelter in Seattle. The person behind the counter said "Your book saved my life." I said Which one? She said "Don't Shoot the Dog. I had a doberman with major aggression problems." "What did you do?" I asked. She said calmly "I shot the dog."
Of course I am now waiting for the first person who comes up and says "Your book changed my life" and it is Reaching the Animal Mind they are talking about! Won't be long now...
