Open the door to a happier, simpler, and less stressful life with your dog. Discover how time-tested parenting principles —grounded in empathy, development, and emotional safety—can work wonders with dogs of any age or background.
* Winner, American Society of Journalists & Authors Book Award
* Winner, Dog Writers Association of America Maxwell Medallion
* Finalist, IAN Book of the Year
When Wendy Lyons Sunshine got her first puppy–found abandoned behind a gas station, struggling with worms and anemia–she was in over her head.
As puppy training guides failed to help with the out-of-control rescue pup, she turned to her work helping world-class child development experts. Could strategies for raising happy, well-adjusted kids transfer to a puppy?
As it turns out, yes, they can!
From the first try, parenting wisdom transformed Sunshine’s relationship with her challenging little one. Soon enough, Sunshine’s view of her puppy shifted from one of adversity to one of understanding and compassion, and she was able to bring patience and therapeutic concepts to meet her dog’s needs.
When Sunshine reached out to experts, they affirmed that evidence-informed principles used with at-risk children align well with best practices of holistic, positive, and progressive dog handling. Exploring parallels between human and canine research, attachment styles, history of trauma, parenting styles, and her own “inner child” proved a mindful path for pet parenting.
Far from a standard dog training manual, Tender Paws explicitly applies parenting wisdom and best practices used with special needs kids to a cross-section of scenarios, from recognizing developmental trauma and unmet core needs, to making decisions about appropriate equipment, to responding to difficult behavior, to understanding the parenting style from which we approach our dogs.
Central to the book is the HEARTS framework of best practices (Healing, Enrichment, Appropriate environments, Respectful relationships, Teaching, and Supporting the individual). Sunshine empowers you and your dog by offering:
* A synthesis of the fields of child development, attachment, trauma, sensory integration, neurobiology, learning, animal behavior, and ethology.
* A problem-solving framework that makes dog training decisions clearer and behavior frustrations easier to resolve.
* Parenting wisdom to help your dog move beyond trauma and into wellness.
Your Dog is Family
Full of heart-tugging, real-life stories, expert interviews, and practical tools, Tender Paws empowers you to understand your dog’s behavior through a new lens—one rooted in science, empathy, and connection.
You’ll meet the spaniel pushed to the brink. The high-drama border collie. The rescue dog facing behavioral euthanasia. See what truly helps dogs change, and witness the transformative power of patience, attunement, emotional safety, and all the HEARTS.
Live Better with Your Dog
Borrowing the principles of parenting for dogs feels obvious to some people: instinctive and ordinary and inevitable. But that’s not true for everyone, especially those of us who had a less than ideal childhood and bear the scars of early harm, loss, trauma, or deprivation.
Tender Paws provides an interdisciplinary, comprehensive, evidence-based guide for readers who want to honor the needs of–and improve outcomes for–puppies and dogs they care about.
Readers call Tender Paws a “compassionate manifesto” and “a game changer.” Recommended by Temple Grandin, certified dog professionals, and dog lovers worldwide.
“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
“Especially helpful for people who are getting new puppies or adopting traumatized rescue dogs.” — Temple Grandin, author of Animals Make us Human
“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 about TENDER PAWS at LibraryThing, Goodreads, Barnes & Noble, and Amazon.
Available from Simon & Schuster, Barnes & Noble, Amazon, Audible, and your favorite bookseller.