For Christmas the woman who would become my wife bought me a dog—a little terrier. The next year her Christmas gift to me was a shotgun. Most of the people in my family believe that those two gifts were not unrelated. So begins Born to Bark, the charming new memoir by psychologist and beloved dog expert Stan Coren of his relationship with an irrepressible gray Cairn terrier named Flint. Stan immediately loved the pup for his friendly nature and indefatigable spirit, though his wife soon found the dogs unpredictable exuberance difficult to deal with, to say the least. Even though Flint drove Stans wife up the wall, he became the joy of Stans life. The key to unlocking this psychologist-authors way of looking at dog behavior, Flint also became the inspiration behind Corens classic, The Intelligence of Dogs.
