Hey there.

You're listening to Drinking from the Toilet, and I'm your host, Hannah Branigan.

This week we're talking to amazing dog trainer and prolific author

Laura Van Aren Dank-Bah. Laura is a fellow KPA faculty member and also is a speaker at Clicker

Expo. And frankly, she's one of the most interesting people I've ever met. In addition to her wide range of really fascinating fiction

novels, she also has two excellent dog training books. Her first book, fired up, frantic and freaked

out, which is all about dogs that get too excited and get into trouble, was a bestseller. I heard fantastic reviews from

everybody that I know who read it. But this week we're actually going to talk about her more

recent book that she just released earlier this year. And that book is all about puppies. It's

called social, civil, and savvy, training and socializing puppies to become the best possible dogs.

And I knew that this was a topic that you guys would be interested in because, well, first of all, who doesn't like talking about puppies?

The only thing I like better than talking about puppies is playing with puppies.

But can't play with puppies on a podcast.

So instead, we'll just talk about them.

And I know that for a lot of us, especially if we consider ourselves more experienced trainers,

when we get a new puppy, there's this feeling of overwhelm and paralysis because before you

get the puppy, this new puppy, you're not going to screw it up.

And then as soon as the puppy is actually in your hands, you feel like the very first thing you're going to do is completely screw it up.

So a lot of times it's really hard to be objective, even if you train other people's puppies for a living.

So this conversation is all about the decisions that we make.

What are the most important things that we can do when we do get a new puppy?

I think it's completely applicable for experienced trainers who are bringing a new puppy into their household.

...