Men and Their Dogs A New Understanding of Man's Best Friend

The healing power of the bond between men and dogs is explored in this unique book. Three important themes emerge: attachment, loss, and continued bonds with canine companions for males across the life span and from various contextual backgrounds. The contributors replace common assumptions with needed context pertaining to men’s emotions and relationships, starting with the impact of gender norms on attachment, and including robust data on how canine companionship may counter Western culture socialization. The chapters engage readers with details pertaining to ways in which dogs help men develop stable, caring relationships, process feelings, and cope with stress – within a variety of environments including home, school and treatment programs for veterans, prisoners, and youth. The book also address men’s loss of companion animals, and the need for building new ways of sustaining the memory and meaning of the bond in males’ lives, referred to as a “continuing bond.” From these various vantage points, therapeutic insights and relevant findings bring a new depth of understanding to this compelling topic.

 Included in the coverage:

• Masculine gender role conflict theory, research, and practice: implications for understanding the human-animal bond in males’ lives.
• At-risk youth and at-risk dogs helping one another.

An examination of human-animal interaction as an outlet for healthy masculinity in prison.

• Exploring how the human-animal bond affects men’s relational capacity to make and sustain meaningful attachment bonds with both human and animal companions .<
Older adults and companion animals: physical and psychological benefits of the bond.
• Continuing the bonds with animal companions: implications for men grieving the loss of a dog.  

Probing the deeper concepts behind “man’s best friend,” Men and Their Dogs provides a rich clinical understanding of this timeless bond, and should be of special interest to health psychologists, clinical psychologists, academicians, social workers, nurses, counselors, life coaches and dog lovers.

Contextual Issues.- A brief history of man's best friend in animal studies.- Understanding the contextual nature of man's best friend.- The link between violence to humans and animals.- Race and ethnicity as a contextual factor influencing perception of the human-animal bond.- Attachment and Well-Being.- Heuristic nature of Bowlby's attachment theory as a means to conceptualize the human-animal bond.- Pets Forever: an innovative service learning course helping community pet owners.- Play and the human-animal bond as a mediator of stress among men with gender role conflict.- Canine companions as self-objects: the role of animal companions in men's lives.- Overview of research on the left gaze bias found in dogs: how humans and animals recognize and respond to the emotional state of another.- Attachment between humans and dogs in Japanese culture.- Attachment to animal companions among a veteran population.- Attachment to animal companions and normative male alexithymia.- Grief, Loss,and the Continued Bond.- Men's grieving styles: the importance of disenfranchised grief and dissonant grief.- Overview of the continuing bond with animal companions: implications for men and their dogs.- Do men really grieve less for animal companions? The influence of gender role conflict and dissonant grief in understanding men's attachment and loss of an animal companion.