“Lots of positive, gentle methods for working effectively with dogs. Tender Paws will be especially helpful for people getting new puppies or adopting traumatized rescue dogs.” — Dr. Temple Grandin, bestselling author of Animals Make Us Human and Animals in Translation
“It’s fabulous. I purchased the audiobook and loved it—then ordered the paperback to read again.” — Niki Tudge, founder and president, Pet Professional Guild
“I had trouble putting this one down” — Jennifer Shryock, founder, Family Paws Parent Education
What if you raised your dog the way developmental psychologists, trauma specialists, and attachment researchers approach raising a child?
When award-winning journalist Wendy Lyons Sunshine adopted her first puppy — a rescue born behind a gas station, separated from her litter too soon, anemic, and overwhelmed — she was in over her head. Standard training guides failed her. In desperation, she reached for help from an unlikely resource: The Connected Child, a bestseller for adoptive families. It helped her see her unruly puppy not as a problem to correct, but as a young creature with invisible, unmet needs. From that moment, their relationship transformed from one of conflict to one of healing.
Tender Paws is a science-based guide to dog parenting — both for the brand-new puppy who’s all teeth and chaos and the adult rescue who arrived with a history you can only guess at.
If you lean toward gentle, positive, relationship-first methods — force-free training, attachment- and trauma-informed care, emotional safety over dominance and correction — and if parenting books like The Connected Child resonate with you, this book meets you there and takes it further.
At the center of the book is the HEARTS framework — six practical, research-backed habits that help any dog flourish, whether yours is twelve weeks or twelve years old: Heal the body, Enrich the brain, create Appropriate environments with felt safety, build Respectful relationships, Teach positively, and Support the individual dog in front of you.
In Tender Paws you’ll find:
- The HEARTS chart that readers tell us they photocopy and use daily — a simple way to pinpoint what your dog actually needs when behavior goes sideways
- Why a fearful, reactive, or traumatized dog — puppy or adult — often needs a calmer nervous system before it needs more training, and how to provide that
- The “tweezer, not a hammer” approach to discipline: how patience, tone, and the smallest effective response outperform force and correction
- Dozens of real cases — the spaniel pushed to the brink, the high-drama border collie, the adult rescue facing behavioral euthanasia — that show what genuinely helps
Readers have called Tender Paws a “compassionate manifesto” and “a game changer.” Recommended by certified pet behavior professionals and dog lovers worldwide.
Both. The book’s HEARTS framework applies whether your dog is twelve weeks or twelve years old. Adult and rescue dogs with unknown or difficult histories are a central focus, not an afterthought.
It was written with you in mind. It applies trauma research and attachment science — the kind used with at-risk children — to dogs carrying histories of neglect, abuse, or early deprivation. It won the 2024 Maxwell Medallion for Best Rescue/Adoption Book.
Most training focuses on obedience and control. Tender Paws focuses on the entire dog — getting to the root of why your dog behaves the way it does and what it genuinely needs to thrive. Positive, force-free training is just one part of a comprehensive, science-led approach rather than the whole answer.
No. Readers consistently describe it as easy to read and immediately usable, with real-life stories, helpful visuals, and one simple framework. It translates research from child development and animal behavior into plain, practical steps.
My dog is reactive, fearful, or anxious. Will this book help?
Yes. Instead of treating reactivity as disobedience, Tender Paws shows how to recognize the unmet needs and nervous-system stress underneath the behavior, and how to build the sense of safety a dog needs before training can take hold.
HEARTS is the book’s six-part approach to helping any dog flourish: Heal the body, Enrich the brain, create Appropriate environments with felt safety, build Respectful relationships, Teach positively, and Support the individual dog. Many readers keep the HEARTS chart handy as a checklist when behavior problems arise.
Yes. It favors patience, trust, and the smallest effective response instead of dominance, harsh correction, or punishment — what the book calls using a tweezer, not a hammer. It sits firmly in the gentle, relationship-centered, force-free tradition.
Yes, and it is narrated by the author, Wendy Lyons Sunshine. Listeners often mention how much her warmth carries through the narration.
“I love this book! This is no ordinary training manual! Not only will it help transform the relationship the reader has with their dog, but it has the potential to change how they relate to other humans and even with themselves.” — Andrew Hale, Dog Centred Care
“A guide for compassionately helping puppies, rescue dogs, and older traumatized canines live their best lives, based upon neuroscience and strategies developed for aiding at-risk children. …. lucid and informative … surprising and intriguing … easily understandable… An articulate, highly informative, and enjoyable puppy-parenting primer. Our Verdict: Get It!” — Kirkus Reviews Indies
“Exceptionally well organized and presented, informed and informative… Tender Paws: How Science-Based Parenting Can Transform Our Relationship with Dogs is especially and unreservedly recommended…” — Midwest Book Review
“A powerful, well-researched, and important common sense book for every dog lover…. Highly recommend.” — Kim Brophey, author of Meet Your Dog: The Game-Changing Guide to Understanding Your Dog’s Behavior
“Sunshine’s ability to break down complex canine psychology into layman’s terms is particularly helpful, and she provides hands-on graphics and tools—checklists, diagrams, and graphs—as well as vivid descriptions…. she also consults with over a dozen animal behaviorists, making this a well-rounded, valuable resource for beleaguered dog owners.” — Booklife
See what readers have to say at LibraryThing, Goodreads, Barnes & Noble, and Amazon.
Available from Simon & Schuster, Barnes & Noble, Amazon, Audible, and your favorite bookseller.