What Shamu Taught Me about Life, Love, and Marriage Audiobook By Amy Sutherland cover art

What Shamu Taught Me about Life, Love, and Marriage

Lessons for People from Animals

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What Shamu Taught Me about Life, Love, and Marriage

By: Amy Sutherland
Narrated by: Hillary Huber
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About this listen

While observing exotic animal trainers for her acclaimed book Kicked, Bitten, and Scratched, journalist Amy Sutherland had an epiphany: What if she used these training techniques with the human animals in her own life?

The next time her husband stomped through the house in search of his mislaid car keys, she asked herself, "What would a dolphin trainer do?" The answer was: nothing. Trainers reward the behavior they want and, just as important, ignore the behavior they don't. As she put more training principles into action, she noticed that she became more optimistic and less judgmental, and that their marriage improved.

What started as a goofy experiment had such good results that Sutherland began using these training techniques with all the people in her life, with great results.

©2008 Amy Sutherland (P)2008 Blackstone Audio, Inc.
Personal Development Personal Success Psychology Psychology & Mental Health Relationships Marriage

Critic reviews

"This engaging, often humorous, insightful book belongs in all public and academic libraries' self-help, psychology, and animal behavior collections." ( Library Journal)

What listeners say about What Shamu Taught Me about Life, Love, and Marriage

Highly rated for:

Enjoyable Storytelling Witty Writing Relatable Examples Quick Read Educational Content
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Every human should read this book!

I wonderful way to learn how to better live in this world with a little more joy spread through progressive training

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College students point of view

This book was well worth the listen to! I have found my self using her advice and seeing what she talks about in day to day task. So I simply loved this book!

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Entertaining but...

This book was entertaining to listen to. However, I am desperately looking for specific directions on how I can train my spouse. She gave more examples of zoo animals than she did of humans! I am looking for a book that is more instructive rather than entertaining. I am not looking for stories- I’m looking for specific steps I can take to help improve myself and the way I interact with my spouse.

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Quick and witty

I enjoyed this quick and witty book about animal training in comparison to humans. Amy's knowledge and experience helped to reflect upon my own life. Along with positive and negative reinforcements being very effective in communicating with animals and humans. Also helping us to habituate those meticulous pet peeves.

I would recommend reading this book. The only reason I read it was for extra credit and actually learned some food for thought.

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Training loved ones

Many insightful suggestions on how you can improve your behavior as well as how you approach others relate to you in many relationships.

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Easy and helpful

Very enjoyable book. Easy to get through quickly and to pick up some helpful tips that you can use right away. Oh, and you'll also learn some fascinating things about exotic animal behavior.
The author has a great sense of humor and I felt that on more than a few occasions this wasn't captured by the way the narrator read at all. Still worth the listen though.

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Incredibly Enlightening!!

Absolutely amazing book!! Can revolutionize your perception of things and how you interact with others.

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Narrator dry, but overall it’s informative and heartwarming

Loved this book! It was a perfect mixture of story telling and education. I loved the relatability that the author wove into every chapter to make things accessible for simpletons like me :)

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So true and helpful

Since my children were babies I've been comparing them to having a dog. while it's not the same the principals apply. Humans are animals. This was a good reminder how to approach the difficulties I have with both the humans and animals in my life. I enjoyed her story telling immensely!

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Great read

A good book was led to it primarily by the New York Times article but thoroughly enjoyed the read lots of takeaways that apply to life in general did not care particularly for the narrator on this audible I thought she had a very deadpan delivery style that I did not care for at times but thoroughly enjoyed the book

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1 person found this helpful