Who’s a Good Human?
Practical Exercises for Living Mindfully with Dogs
Coming Fall 2026 from the University of Chicago Press
Description:
What if living well with a dog required as much training for humans as it does for dogs?
Who’s a Good Human? is a practical workbook for people who want to become more attentive, curious, and responsive companions to their dogs.
A Different Kind of Dog Book
Most dog books ask: How do I train my dog?
Who’s a Good Human? asks a different question:
What do humans need to learn?
Rather than teaching you how to make your dog behave, this book invites you to practice the skills that make a richer relationship possible: paying attention, asking questions, noticing emotions, communicating, collaborating, and making room for your dog’s choices.
It’s not about becoming a perfect dog person. It’s about learning to meet your dog halfway.
A Book About Human Training
Most books about living with dogs focus on training the dog.
This book turns the question around.
Who’s a Good Human? is a kind of pretraining workbook for people—an invitation to practice the skills that make a richer relationship with a dog possible.
The book is organized around ten areas of everyday life with dogs:
Mindful Presence · Curiosity · Relationship · Emotions · Behavior · Communication & Co-Regulation · Freedom · Fieldwork · Aging & Impermanence · Reflection
Each section combines short reflections with practical exercises designed to help you slow down, notice more, and experiment with different ways of being together.
Try an Exercise
The book isn’t meant simply to be read. It’s meant to be practiced.
Sniff Time Field Trip
Take your dog on a walk where they set the pace and direction. Let them sniff as long as they want, and follow with curiosity.
Reading Facial Expressions
Dogs communicate through subtle facial movements. Slow down and practice noticing the small changes in your dog’s face—and what they might be telling you.
“I Never Noticed That Before…”
Start a page you return to each week. Keep a running list of small things you’ve only just noticed about your dog: behaviors, preferences, habits, and patterns.
Just Getting Started with a Puppy?
Who’s a Good Human? Puppy Edition
If you’ve recently brought a puppy into your life, here’s a place to begin.
I’ve created a free mini-workbook with three short exercises for new puppy people. They’re designed to help you start building a relationship based not just on teaching your puppy what to do, but on learning how to pay attention to the individual dog you’re getting to know.
[Download the free Puppy Edition. I’d like to link here to the pdf handout, “Who’s a good dog – Puppy Edition, attached to my email]
No purchase necessary.
Who’s a Good Dog? — And Who’s a Good Human?
Who’s a Good Human? grows out of my earlier book, Who’s a Good Dog?
If Who’s a Good Dog? asks us to rethink the ways we understand dogs and their behavior, Who’s a Good Human? takes the next step:
What do humans need to learn?
Together, the books ask us to imagine our relationships with dogs less as projects of control and more as opportunities for curiosity, communication, collaboration, and mutual learning.
[Explore Who’s a Good Dog? → link to Who’s a Good Dog description]
Living With a Dog Is a Practice
Living with a dog is an ongoing negotiation between different bodies, perceptions, needs, histories, and ways of moving through the world.
We don’t always understand what our dogs are telling us. We don’t always get it right. But we can become more attentive to the relationship—and more willing to notice what our dogs are showing us.
Who’s a Good Human? offers a place to practice.
The Bark Book
Listen closely to your dog’s voice. Keep a record of their barks, whines, growls, howls, and other sounds, along with the situations in which they occur, and begin discovering your dog’s unique vocal language.
Exploring Your Dog’s Foraging Nature
Give your dog opportunities to search, sniff, investigate, and make choices around food. Notice how foraging engages your dog’s senses, body, and mind.
About the author
Jessica Pierce is a bioethicist, philosopher, and author whose work explores the moral and social lives of animals and the ethical dimensions of our relationships with the more-than-human world.
She is the author of Who’s a Good Dog?, A Dog’s World, The Last Walk, Run, Spot, Run, Unleashing Your Dog, Dogpedia, and Wild Justice, written with Marc Bekoff.
