There is nothing sweeter for me than to be working on a new book, and today I begin the final edit of my next e-book original, “Listening To Dogs.” Like “The Story Of Rose,” this will only be available digitally – Amazon, Bn.com, all e-book readers, smartphones and computers. My agent Christopher Schelling chose the title this week and I like it. “Listening To Dogs” is my theory of training and living with dogs, a theory that has evolved tremendously since I began writing about dogs nearly 15 years and seven or eight books ago.

It is not a training book. It will not tell you how to get your dog to sit and stay. Hopefully, it will empower you to do these things for yourself. It will hopefully inspire you to learn how to listen to your dog, rather than tell him or he what they are thinking.  I believe dog training has become a catastrophe in America, a shell game in which a few people make a lot of money offering complex and obtuse theories to dog-loving people who can’t do what they do and give up on having the dogs they want and are entitled to have. So the book – about 30,000 words and quite inexpensive – details how I have done it, and cautions you that what I do on a farm isn’t necessarily what you need to do. What you need to do is personal, individual, tailed to you, your dog, your temperament and your life and family. This is my manifesto when it comes to living with dogs.

I am not a dog trainer, but many of you have witnessed the remarkable dogs I have been blessed to have, and this new book will talk for the first time in some detail about my ideas, from the tragedy of Orson to Frieda, Rose, Red and Lenore.

Many of you have witnessed this evolution on the blog. I have been open about it. I want to share what I have learned, not so that you do what I did but so you figure it out for yourself, as I have done and am doing. So this morning I will wade into the final edit of this book which we plan to publish in late February or early March. I’ll keep you posted.

My next paper book, ‘The Second Chance Dog: A Love Story,” about Maria, me and Frieda will be published in the fall. When it comes to training a dog, Frieda will always rank as my finest hour.