is necessary to take the dog on a leash or move away from the path. An owner who knows that his dog may bite another dog - I'm not talking about the harmless fuss that is a common component of dog communication - should not let him off the leash.

Dog breeders do not stand on ceremony with people exclaiming in such cases: “Oh, he never did this before!” or treating training as a waste of time and money, although their dogs are gradually turning into real neurotics and behaving more and more noisy and aggressive. Such people bring trouble to respectable, well-mannered dogs, so if they do not want to bother with training their dog, they will have to find themselves another place to walk.

However, I warned Kate that some hosts - quite a lot of them, in fact - are not responsible. They don't clean up after their dogs, forcing the rest to walk around fragrant piles, bringing unbalanced animals into the park that frighten parents with children and cyclists. I once ran into a man who brought in four dogs that had just been rescued from a shelter. He let them run and they attacked the beagle.

But Kate still looked frightened and unhappy, she had difficulty fastening Rushmore's leash to the collar and gave him a soccer ball to play with, too big for his mouth. I advised her to buy a smaller ball so that the dog could carry it in her mouth.

In the end, she admitted that Rushmore is not her dog, or rather, not quite hers, and she does not consider herself a real dog breeder. She bought the dog for her husband as a birthday present, shortly before he was taken to the hospital with a heart attack. He soon died; he was only forty-four. Kate considered returning the puppy to the kennel, but couldn't. She decided to keep the dog, believing that her husband, who managed to become attached to the puppy, would approve of her act. But Kate herself gave the impression of a person who took on a heavy duty.

Rushmore had the heroic appearance and dignity of his breed. However, at the first glance at him, it was immediately clear that not everything was going well in his life. Kate seemed to be barely able to bear the presence of a dog. Perhaps the sight of Rushmore caused her pain. memories.

I invited her to join our company so she could get used to Mills' rituals. She agreed with obvious relief.

Rushmore showed no interest in any of the things that dogs usually love so much - he did not pick up scraps from the ground, he did not roll in smelly garbage, he did not sniff other dogs or people. The dog walked majestically between the trees and invariably rejected the treat offered to him.

The path made a turn, and three mutts rushed towards us, barking; Rushmore dispassionately allowed himself to be sniffed by them and with equal imperturbability withdrew.

Kate said she was determined to go through with it and learn all the necessary tricks to properly handle Rushmore. She believed that in this way she would preserve the memory of her husband, and part of his soul would remain with her. "It doesn't matter which one," she added.

So, getting involved in the battle is already half the battle. It was not easy for Kate to cope with her feelings: talking about the dog, she could hardly hold back her tears. The woman had absolutely no idea what to do with him and how to fill the void that had formed in the life of the dog after the death of the owner, but she decided to try - if only in order to recover from the loss and try to glue her life again.

We agreed to meet at the Mills on Wednesdays so that Kate could get to know all the local regulars during our walks together. In just a couple of months, a real metamorphosis took place with her. To be honest, I expected a week or two to pass and she would just disappear, but Kate didn't miss a single Wednesday. She not only walked with Rushmore for a long time in the morning and evening, but she took another important step - she hired a trainer. It doesn't occur to many Montclair dog breeders that by buying an expensive working dog weighing about forty kilograms, it's foolish to save three or four hundred dollars on its training. They do not even bother to read special literature to cope with training on their own. As a rule, such shortsightedness brings disastrous results: from manifestations of aggression and continuous barking to chewed clothes.

But Kate took Rushmore to a special training center on Madison. The center bore the name of St. Hubert and enjoyed a good reputation. There they took a course of obedience and general training. Kate taught her dog to wear a sock, and now he showed up in the park with a little red ball in the teeth.

She used treats, toys, and praise to reinforce her progress—Rushmore developed a keen interest in beef jerky, which he received as a reward for following the commands “come,” “sit,” and “stand.” At first, as serious as most German Shepherds, he was not particularly interested in noisy fuss, but after a while he was happy to arrange a “bunch and little” along with several retrievers. However, I considered the most important achievement that he began to take an interest in Kate, quickly turned around when she called him by name, and approached the hostess.

By winter, she proudly announced that Rushmore "became the meaning of her life," that without his support she would not have been able to survive Stan's death, that the dog distracted her from her worries and still makes her work on herself; he brightened up her loneliness and gave her existence meaningfulness.

“At first, Rushmore reminded me of my husband’s death, and it was hard for me to even look at him,” Kate admitted. “He still reminds me of my husband, but in a different way. Somehow he made me come to my senses.

Kate said she was scared at first when the therapist she was seeing suggested she bring Rushmore with her, but she followed his advice.

“I was talking and crying, and he was sitting at my feet. This dog has become a cure for me. And then we learned to enjoy life together. I have wonderful friends who went out of their way to support me. But they couldn't curl up with me on a cold winter night, when I lay on my sofa, petrified with grief. They could not share the deserted house with me.

I have already seen how the relationship between the owner and the dog outgrew the usual framework of human relations with a pet. Acquaintance with this couple led me to the idea to write about the atypical relationship between Americans and their dogs.

In recent years, I have interviewed hundreds of dog breeders, not to mention breeders, rescuers, trainers, animal behaviorists, and animal psychologists. Our discussions took place in a variety of forms - from a half-hour exchange of views during a walk to a lengthy interview at home or in the yard of my interlocutors. In a sense, these meetings were very revealing.

The heroes of this book are several people and their dogs, living in or near Montclair. Their stories best support the theory I developed, according to which a new field of activity for dogs is the emotional sphere of man. People in our time are increasingly moving away from each other and are increasingly suffering from mutual alienation and loneliness.

Of course, this explanation cannot be considered universal. Some get dogs for more simple reasons - as a companion or watchman, an assistant in hunting or in official activities - in a word, no psychological motives. But more and more often, a person facing serious life problems sees a partner in a dog, or at least his surrogate.

While studying the subject, as a journalist and author of a book, I met many people who opened the doors to their homes and even lives for me. Sometimes, in order to get an idea of ​​​​my hero, one single meeting was enough for me, other times our friendship dragged on for months, because I wanted to see for myself how my character's relationship with the dog developed, when she was a puppy, during the training period, and so on. Further.

Together with these people, I went to kennels to choose puppies, accompanied them during walks and visits to the veterinarian. He visited shelters with rescuers, accompanied the dogs to the homes of their new owners, where a new life awaited them - sometimes happy, sometimes not so much.

In preparing this book for publication, I conscientiously studied the writings of sociologists, animal behaviorists, animal psychologists, psychiatrists, and psychoanalysts, especially those who specialize in attachment theory and the study of human-animal relationships.

For the first time, the theory of attachment was put forward by the British psychiatrist John Bowlby, after which it was picked up by other professionals studying mental processes in humans; in their opinion, how a person's relationship with his first caregiver in the early stages of life develops (or does not develop) determines his further emotional development.

The process of forming attachment leaves an indelible imprint on the human personality. Knowing its features, one can understand the problems that arise in relationships (primarily emotional ones) throughout life. Among them are the inextricable bonds that bind a person to his dog.

The first person to draw my attention to