Follow My Lead
What Training My Dogs Taught Me about Life, Love, and Happiness
-
- $11.99
-
- $11.99
Publisher Description
Follow My Lead is the story of how two rambunctious dogs and a tough Eastern European dog trainer named Irina taught Carol Quinn everything she needed to know about life, love, and happiness.
It all begins when the author—unhappy with her failing love affair, her career, and even herself—decides to enroll her two Rhodesian ridgebacks into dog agility training. She's hoping to both find a hobby and straighten out her unruly pets, but she soon discovers that dog agility demands more from her than she ever expected. What follows is a life-changing experience: one that teaches her not only about her dogs but also about herself.
With Irina’s guidance and wisdom, Quinn and her dogs develop a deep bond of trust as they learn to navigate the course obstacles, and Quinn begins to accept her own flaws, allowing her to find the inner strength to become the "alpha dog” of her own life.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
When Quinn, an advertising agency owner and writer, enrolls her two Rhodesian Ridgebacks in dog agility training, she discovers that their trainer Irina's lessons in positive reinforcement could be applied to disentangling her own personal and career dilemmas. "Life had become a series of expectations and demands, she writes. "Rewarding good behavior certainly got me a lot further than demanding good behavior. Kindness to myself and to those around me elicited better responses than demands. Quinn's conversational tone, evident affection for her dogs, and willingness to examine her mistakes endear her as a narrator, but the secondary characters Quinn's ex, Henry, and even Irina herself remain one-dimensional. The vilified Henry is so unpleasant, not even allowing her any of her own furniture in the house they briefly shared, that the reader questions Quinn's judgment. "There was no joy in me, she writes of cohabitating with him. "I felt like I was facing a life sentence in prison. A proliferation of sentence-long paragraphs perhaps an advertising tic doling out fortune-cookie philosophy ("Life isn't a race. There's no prize if you reach your goal faster than the next person. ), prevent the book from fulfilling the potential of its premise.
