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I'm Jennyfer Tan, and I live in Vancouver, BC, with my family and our two rescue dogs, Rosco and Rei. Neither of them is what anyone would call an easy dog.
Rosco is fearful. His early life left him wary of the world, and he missed the gentle socialization most puppies get. Rei came to us as a foster, a former village dog from Korea whose big feelings come out as frustration. When his adopter had an emergency and couldn't take him, we asked to keep him.
Living with them was humbling. There were embarrassing moments, hard days, and plenty of advice that didn't fit either dog. What finally helped was slowing down and asking why they reacted the way they did, not just how to make it stop.
That shift changed my path. I became a Certified Family Dog Mediator and Professional Dog Trainer, founded R+R Canine Consulting, and started Under the Same Roof, a podcast about life with a neurodivergent son and 2 reactive dogs.
I wrote Loving the Difficult Dog for the guardian I used to be: tired, a little embarrassed, and quietly wondering if I was the problem. I wanted other guardians to know they're not alone, and their dog isn't broken.
Reviewed by Emily-Jane Hills Orford for Readers' Favorite
Life with a reactive dog is no easy venture. Maintaining your love for that reactive dog can be very difficult at times, especially when all the hard training over the past few months has proved futile in practice and your reactive dog, on a leash, lunges at some unsuspecting person (possibly with their own dog on a leash). Jennyfer Tan’s Loving the Difficult Dog speaks from experience and from considerable training as a dog trainer, a dog mediator, and as a dog owner. There are things you can do to ease the complications involved in owning a reactive dog, be it a rescue or a purebred. Some of these things might seem simple and perhaps even a bit of escapism, like avoiding busy times of the day for walking your dog, and avoiding contact with other dog owners who are always full of advice but never really understand. Then there’s all the reading you do, in the hopes of finding that one right answer to fix your reactive dog. And the consultation with multiple dog trainers in the hope that they have some answers. The bottom line is, there is no right answer that suits every dog and every situation. However, there is hope and, with your unconditional love for this challenging four-legged member of the family, you can make some progress. This book will certainly help.
Jennyfer Tan’s book, Loving the Difficult Dog: What My Reactive Rescues Taught Me About Unconditional Love, is a thorough guide to help owners of challenging dogs to navigate the rough waters of unconditional love. Written almost like a memoir, the author leads readers through her own experiences, embarrassments, and struggles to make things work both for herself and her ‘difficult’ dogs. The key is understanding the dog by trying to think the way they think. The book is well organized and presents multiple situations that owners of reactive dogs (like myself) will appreciate and understand. This book certainly provides a new perspective for the ‘difficult’ situations reactive dogs present.
