Patricia McConnell
Patricia McConnell
Patricia Bean McConnell is an Adjunct Professor of Zoology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and expert in animal behavior. She has written several books, including The Other End of the Leash and For the Love of a Dog, and produced a number of pet training DVDs. In both her academic and popular writing she has focused on issues of interspecies communication. She also runs her own publishing company, McConnell Publishing...
dog looks perhaps taught
Perhaps you've taught your dog to sit, and you want to show this off to your friends, ... You say, 'Sit,' but he just looks at you." ()
biggest control dogs drops emotional family handle houses learn problems react
One of the biggest problems I see are dogs who don't have a lot of emotional control and frustration tolerance. If dogs are going to live in our houses as family members, they need to learn how to physiologically handle spiraling emotions, not react like a 2-year-old who drops an ice-cream cone." ()
running dog strong
There's a stone I had made for Luke at the top of the hill road, where the pasture opens wide and the setting sun highlights the words carved into its face. "That'll do, Luke, that'll do." The words are said to working dogs all over the world when the chores are done and the flock is settled: "That'll do dog, come home now, your work is done." Luke's work is done too. He took my heart and ran with it, and he's running still, fast and strong, a piece of my heart bound up with his, forever.
dog animal unique
We humans are in such a strange position—we are still animals whose behavior reflects that of our ancestors, yet we are unique—unlike any other animal on earth. Our distinctiveness separates us and makes it easy to forget where we came from. Perhaps dogs help us remember the depth of our roots, reminding us—the animals at the other end of the leash—that we may be special, but we are not alone. No wonder we call them our best friends.
behavior dogs domestic focus follow humans intelligence opens passed questions social watch
Domestic dogs follow humans like a laser and watch the behavior of their humans with a focus that is astounding, ... This opens up big and interesting questions about how social intelligence is passed on genetically." ()
against animals beds bias domestic eat otherwise plates science sleep studying
Science has always been uncomfortable with emotions, so there's a real bias against studying domestic animals. Especially canines that may sleep in our beds and eat off our plates and otherwise get spoiled.
couple writing years
The only thing I remember writing in prison is a couple of poems for an inmate magazine they did once a year.
jail age fifteen
I'm actually a lowlife. On the street at fifteen and also in jail for the first time at that age, and off and on the street until my mid-twenties.
white facts assuming
The fact that educated white women automatically assume that we have similar backgrounds annoys me. We don't. I feel like I'm in a certain kind of drag.
weed drug criminals
Although I was simply what today would be called a "mule" - the bottom of the food chain in the drug biz - the federal system treated me from beginning to end like a major criminal, and I still don't know why, other than that in those days, 6.5 ounces of heroin was a big load. Ludicrous by today's standards, when coke, heroin, and weed are shipped across the border by the ton.
historical peers prison
My friends in prison were mostly women more like myself: not historical figures who I did not relate to as peers, but hookers and addicts.
husband dirty past
My husband regarded my prison past as a dirty secret and never asked me one single question about it. But what I had experienced and witnessed was eating at me and I needed to "tell somebody."
loss life-is worst
The loss of a sexual life is one of the worst things about getting really old. The worst thing.
lust clubs getting-laid
At eighty-one, health club-lusting is as close as I'll ever come to getting laid again.