One of my favorite high school teachers used to help us navigate the waters of teenage romantic relationships, and one of his favorite pieces of advice was the slogan: Mean what you say and say what you mean. 

This used to resonate with me, as hearts used to get broken all the time back then, because people would say "I love you" and not really mean, or "sure let's go out friday night" and not really mean.  

We also had feelings that we were either too timid to say out loud and at our worst, we were too angry to say what we really meant - instead we would just yell and hurt each others' feelings.  

All of this causes a lot of confusion, sadness and broken relationships and to this day, I still think that simple slogan, if followed, is one of the easiest ways to get people to respect you and ultimately, to like you. 

So what does this have to do with dogs? In short, everything.  

My wife Tracy is a savvy dog handler and she always gets exceptionally worried for a dog's future when I tell her I will be working with a dog who is biting his own owner or family.  

She's not wrong in this worry. When a relationship has deteriorated to this point - where a dog feels that it is okay to resort to that level of violence - it can be particularly difficult for a dog owner to put that to the back of their mind and move forward with the dog's rehabilitation. Even professional trainers who get bit may find it difficult to work well with a biting dog.

With that in mind, if you're trying to save your relationship with a dog who bites you, you need to consider two things first: 

Dog training doesn't just require hours of hands-on work - it also requires lots of research! There are so many competing methodologies, learning them all enables me to be a well-rounded trainer. I'm able to approach each dog with an arsenal of knowledge and apply methods as needed. With that, I have found several books that I recommend to my clients that are not too technical and provide additional help once our training sessions have ended.

If you've ever wondered what we're reading over at AWDT, check out our pinterest board of all the BEST dog reads. These books range from the very top level overview of owning a furry friend to dog fiction to deep dives into specific hurdles you may run into with your dog. 

Note that some of these books contain outdated methodologies that I would not use or recommend, but I add them to the list to because they contain such useful information. 

This board is constantly updated, so I encourage you to follow it if you're looking to broaden your skills as a responsible dog owner!