Follow My Lead: What Training My Dogs Taught Me about Life, Love, and Happiness

Follow My Lead is the story of how two rambunctious dogs and a tough Eastern European dog trainer named Irina taught Carol Quinn everything she needed to know about life, love, and happiness. It all begins when the author decides--somewhat naively--to enroll her two Rhodesian ridgebacks, Nairobi and Sheila, into dog agility training. Unhappy with her failing love affair, her career, and even herself, she's hoping to find a hobby and straighten out her unruly but affectionate pets. She soon discovers that dog agility is not a lazy game of fetch--it's a highly competitive sport that requires owners to move their dogs through a timed obstacle course using only voice and hand signals. What follows is a life-changing experience: a learning process that teaches her not only about her dogs, but also about herself. As she continues, the training, and even the obstacle course itself, becomes a metaphor for her life.

With humor and candor, Quinn shares the parallel story of how, with Irina's guidance and wisdom, she and her dogs develop a deep bond of love and trust, and learn to navigate the course obstacles with grace and skill
and how she, too, overcomes life's obstacles by accepting her flaws and finding the inner strength to move forward--away from her doomed love affair, fears, and anxieties--and become the "alpha dog" of her own life.

Funny, thoughtful, and uplifting, Follow My Lead is a story full of useful life lessons and homespun wisdom that will entertain and inspire readers of all sensibilities, whether they are dog lovers or not.