Saturday 8 July 2006

Fetch! Sit! Down boy! Beg!

That, me children, is the way to train your significant other.

So says Amy Sutherland. And you've got to believe her. She wrote the book. Well, a book. It's called Kicked, Bitten and Scratched: Life and Lessons at the Premier School for Exotic Animal Trainers.

Seriously though, the stuff she says makes sense. Reward behavior you would like to see more of. (Though the flip-side, ignoring the stuff you don't like, isn't easy for most of us.) Understand your exotic animal bit o' fluff. If they're doing things you don't like, find other stuff they like to do that would make it impossible to get up your nose and encourage that instead. Examine your own behaviour and see whether you're contributing to the problem. Elementary stuff, I would have thought. But with our track record, we should shut up now.

2 comments:

Janaki said...

Yes I read that too! Loved how it ended!!!

Unknown said...

Thanks for that, Zig -- it should be handed out with all marriage licences (-- or are they called certificates these days? Permits? Coupons?). Maybe even made part of the school curriculum -- after all, children should be enabled to train their parents too. Just to be fair and even-handed all around.
Initially, I found the tone of it rather off-putting -- I find it just as annoying when women are rude about men as when men a.r.a.w -- but later I decided that the author may have intentionally biased the piece in order to ensure that most women WOULD read it. If there's a sharp drop in domestic-nagging-related crimes, she'll have been the cause of it!