For many years when someone came up to me and said, "I loved your book," or "Your book changed my life," it was Nursing Your Baby that they were talking about. So sometimes when a young woman comes up with that opening, I still do wonder which book she is talking about.
Here’s a story from the Internet by Christina Waggoner.
"I approached Karen Pryor at ClickerExpo. 'Uh...I just wanted to introduce myself. I'm Chris Waggoner and I loved your book...' I stammered. Karen smiled and shook my hand and said, 'Which one?'
'Don't Shoot The Dog,' I barely managed to get out.
In her mind, there was only one. She adds, “Sorry, Karen—if it helps, I bought Lads Before The Wind at that Expo! Karen must have thought I was a bit soft in the head, but she was so polite and still thanked me.”
So, Chris, a few years later, let me explain!
Asking you "Which one?" was a private joke, and a little impolite of me. My FIRST book, in 1963, was Nursing Your Baby. It was the first book ever written about breastfeeding for mothers themselves, rather than a medical audience. It sold over a million copies in the next twenty years and I spent a lot of time working with La Leche League and helping mothers. For many years when someone came up to me and said, "I loved your book," or "Your book changed my life," it was Nursing Your Baby that they were talking about. So sometimes when a young woman comes up with that opening I still do wonder which book she is talking about.
Dog trainers, of course, seldom know me as the author of Nursing Your Baby. I should have remembered that. However Don't Shoot the Dog had a very slow start, and was hardly known to anyone for a long time. I remember vividly when for the very first time it was DSTD the person was talking about.
It happened in a shelter in Seattle. The person behind the counter said "Your book saved my life." I said "Which one?" She said "Don't Shoot the Dog. I had a doberman with major aggression problems." "What did you do?" I asked. She said calmly, "I shot the dog."
And now it's the new book!
I was wondering when--if ever--this would happen with the new book, and by gosh, last weekend, on a Cornell alumni field trip, I sat down for lunch at a table full of students, started talking to them, and one of them turned around and said..."Are you Karen Pryor? THE Karen Pryor? Your book changed my life!" And she was talking about Reaching the Animal Mind.
See my blog "The Crab Girl."