Quotes from Ted Kerasote

Occam's razor or the law of parsimony, which states that when two theories compete to explain an unknown phenomenon we should err on the side of the simpler explanation.

The 'submissiveness' of dogs below the 'top dog' signals more their location and cooperative role in this food-getting system than it does 'being dominated.'" She goes on to say that dogs' relationships with people mirror their relationships to litter-mates, who, in the wild, are "contemporaries.

When socialized to people, both dogs and wolves transfer to human beings the social relationships which they would normally develop with their own kind insofar as this is permitted by their owners.

When we'd walk by mule deer, he'd watch them—one ear pricked toward them, one ear angled back in my direction—as I'd repeat, "Deer, no, stay,

You're doing the right thing, letting the process happen. He's not in pain. It's what we see in dying that is uncomfortable to us.

most dog owners, having heard the mantra of "be a strong alpha" for so long, quite understandably reproduce a pack structure that's dysfunctionally skewed toward dominance rather than cooperation.