Tim Link - Talking with Dogs and Cats: Joining the Conversation to Improve Behavior and Bond with Your Animals

Praise for Talking with Dogs and Cats and Tim Link

This wonderful book is filled with so much invaluable information about truly communicating with our dear animals. I loved it!

Alison Pace, author of You Tell Your Dog First

Communication is everything! Tim Links wonderfully informative book gives us the tools we need for understanding our pets wants and needs using a language they understand.

Sue Chipperton, coauthor of A Famous Dogs Life: The Story of Gidget, Americas Most Beloved Chihuahua

Tim Link is the best friend any dog or cat ever had providing an insightful, heartwarming guide to teaching us what our pets are truly thinking and feeling. The more you read it, the stronger the connection between you and mans best friend will be.

Glenn Plaskin, bestselling author of Katie Up and Down the Hall: The True Story of How One Dog Turned Five Neighbors into a Family

Tim Link does the impossible by taking the mystery out of communicating with dogs and cats. He combines excellent training tips with compassionate and respectful conversations about separation anxiety, behavior issues, changes in routine, and new additions to the family. Anyone can use Links methods. If everyone did, fewer animals would lose their homes. Give this insightful and necessary book to anyone with a pet.

Allen and Linda Anderson, New York Timesbestselling authors of A Dog Named Leaf, Angel Dogs, and Angel Cats and founders of Angel Animals Network

Most of us have an intuitive sense that our dogs and cats understand a great deal of our verbal and nonverbal communication. In this informative work, Tim Link digs deeper into the phenomenon and helps us to better communicate with our pets. Highly recommended for anyone who wants to enhance their relationships with their pets.

Greg Kincaid, author of A Dog Named Christmas and other novels

In Talking with Dogs and Cats Tim Link brilliantly teaches you in a very short time how to engage with and understand your animals organically, giving you the benefits of what took me dozens of years to learn on my own. Once you know the secrets of how to communicate with your best friend, the bond you share together becomes incredibly rewarding and enduring. I highly recommend this book to anyone who has a furry best friend!

Mark Winter, cofounder and executive producer, Pet Life Radio

Tim Link is a gentle person who has a unique ability that draws animals to him. He has helped thousands of animals through what he does.

Victoria Stilwell, dog behavior expert and host of Its Me or the Dog

Talking with Dogs and Cats

Copyright 2015 by Tim Link

All rights reserved. This book may not be reproduced in whole or in part, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means electronic, mechanical, or other without written permission from the publisher, except by a reviewer, who may quote brief passages in a review.

The material in this book is intended for education. No expressed or implied guarantee of the effects of the use of the recommendations can be given nor liability taken.

The authors experiences used as examples throughout this book are true, although some identifying details such as name and location have been changed to protect the privacy of others.

Text design by Tona Pearce Myers

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available.

Link, Tim, date.

Talking with dogs and cats : joining the conversation to improve behavior and bond with your animals / Tim Link.

pages cm

Includes bibliographical references.

ISBN 978-1-60868-322-2 (pbk. : alk. paper)

1. PetsPsychology. 2. PetsBehavior. 3. Human-animal communication.

I. Title.

SF412.5.L56 2015

636.088'7dc23

2015004274

First printing, June 2015

ISBN 978-1-60868-322-2

Printed in the USA on 100% postconsumer-waste recycled paper

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

To the many animals who have taught and continue to teach me almost everything I know about animals; and to my wife, Kim, who continues to support me on my lifes journey

Contents

I ve been a dog-behavior expert for many years, studying every available method, technique, and theory, using what works and disregarding what I believe to be ineffective or inhumane. As training ideas have evolved and dogs and cats have become ever more important members of the family, our understanding of what they need to be successful in our domestic environment has also evolved. In the past ten years, the study of canine cognition and behavior, for example, has exploded, with some of the worlds finest research universities and organizations making incredible discoveries that will only enhance the lives of our animal friends. This work is not being done by people donning white coats in old-fashioned laboratories, but in normal everyday environments with regular dog owners bringing in their pets to play a series of fun games or negotiate a variety of stimulating challenges. Thanks to science we can now watch how the canine brain responds to certain stimuli in real time and gain even more evidence to validate what we already know: that dogs are smart, emotional, sentient beings that learn much more successfully through motivation and kindness rather than via outdated techniques that punish, inflict pain, or intimidate.

As a science geek, I love what research studies and my own observations have shown, because Im one of those people who needs proof to support what I believe and teach others. I need to know that my positive, force-free training style is the most effective and humane way to go when teaching dogs and cats, so I can feel comfortable about passing along to my clients what I have learned. I deliver this information with the full knowledge that what Im doing is backed up with a wealth of well-researched evidence. A whole world of study remains untapped, but that is what makes the field of animal behavior so exciting.

Animal communication exists on a completely different level, but it complements what we as lovers of science and learning are trying to do. I admit that Im one of those people who thinks the practice of animal communication is a little strange, only because I dont fully understand it. Whatever opinions I might have, though, there is nothing strange about Tim Link. He is an exceptionally normal person. I dont mean this unkindly, I just mean that if you were to meet him, you might be surprised at just how down-to-earth he is, but there is no doubt that Link has an ability that most people, like me, dont fully understand. Hes a kind, gentle, knowledgeable person who has spent many years helping people and their pets with all kinds of issues. He just does it in a slightly different way.