F some advertiser or political consultant could figure out just what it is in human psychology that makes us willing to believe that dogs are loyal, trustworthy, selfless, loving, courageous, noble, and obedient, he could retire to his own island in the Caribbean in about a week with what he would make peddling that secret. Dogs belong to that select group of con artists at the very top of the profession, the ones who pick our pockets clean and leave us smiling about it.
Dogs take from the rich, they take from the poor, and they keep it all.
They decide when we may go to bed at night and when we must rise in the morning, where we may go on vacation and for how long, whom we may invite over to dinner, and how we should decorate our living rooms. If we had roommates who behaved like this, we'd be calling a lawyer, or the police. Animal behaviorism is an infant science, but it has dramatically changed the way many dog owners understand their animals. A night on the heels of America's premier female coon hunter. If a Lion Could Talk.