Laurel Saville never meant to be a dog trainer. Sure, she'd loved dogs all her life, but training them was never a part of the equation. Until she adopted that dog. A dog she fell in love with, who also needed . . . a lot of help. After success in training this particular dog, Saville found herself sharing her hard-won wisdom with others, and thus began her new career consulting people in dog crisis. But what she learned from consulting over time was not what she expected. Humans were the ones who really needed the help, more so than the dogs—constantly struggling with bad advice and poor choices, confusing emotions and family feuds, the whole nine yards. Whatever was going on with the dog, was almost always a lesson about something going on with themselves. To make sense of it all, Saville turned back to writing, and How to Live with a Dog was born. In this gorgeous collection of essays, Saville tells stories about humans with dog problems, and dogs with human problems.

For fans of Susan Orlean's On Animals, Saville's heartwarming essays walk us through a dozen stories, taking an in-depth look at the psychology and behavior of both dogs and humans, in all their beauty and also their frustrations. Most importantly, Saville shows us how to live with a dog in a way that lets us live with ourselves.