Meet Jackie Eckert
For more than 20 years, I’ve worked hands-on with anxious, reactive, aggressive, and difficult-to-control dogs — and with owners who were frustrated, embarrassed, exhausted, and often wondering why everyone else’s dog seemed easier than theirs.
What I kept seeing changed the way I understood dog behavior. Many of these owners were trying hard to do the right thing — following the advice they’d been given, giving their dogs more, and trying one solution after another — yet the problems continued.
That’s what made me start asking different questions.
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Professional Dog Trainer • 20+ Years Experience • Behavior Specialist
Why I Wrote This Book
After working with hundreds of families, I began noticing patterns that didn’t fit many of the explanations we were being given about dogs.
Instead of asking only, “How do we stop this behavior?” I began asking, “Why does this behavior make sense to this dog?”
What has the dog learned? What happens in everyday life? How does the dog experience the situation? What are people unknowingly teaching or reinforcing? And could some of the things we’ve been told should help actually be contributing to the problem?
The more I looked beneath the behavior, the more I realized the problem was often much bigger than training alone.
My Background
My perspective didn’t develop from theory alone. It developed over more than two decades of working with dogs in real homes, rescue facilities, veterinary settings, daycares, and everyday life.
I’ve worked with anxious, reactive, aggressive, and complex behavior cases — often with families who felt they had tried everything.
Seeing dogs across so many different environments allowed me to recognize patterns that are easy to miss when we focus on one behavior, one label, or one training technique at a time.
The Answers Weren’t Always Comfortable
Some of the conclusions I reached challenged things I had believed myself about dogs, love, training, and what it means to give a dog a good life.
Over time, I had to ask harder questions about the extraordinary emotional role dogs have come to play in our lives — and whether everything we do in the name of loving dogs is necessarily serving them as well as we believe it is.
Those questions can be uncomfortable. They are also central to The American Dog Epidemic.
This book isn’t written to tell you what you already believe. It asks you to be willing to look again.
★★★★★
“Finally! An honest opinion about domesticated dog behavior.”
— N. Lester, Verified Amazon Reader
Who This Book Is For
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Are frustrated by dog behavior they can’t seem to change
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Want to understand why the behavior is happening — not just how to stop it
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Are willing to question conventional dog-training advice
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Are open to ideas about dogs and our relationship with them that may be uncomfortable
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Want deeper understanding rather than another quick fix
Ready to Look at Dog Behavior Differently?
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