Tank & Tiffany... a love story

About the Book

This book is about two retired professors who lived with two Golden Retrievers for fourteen years; first with one, then two, then one. With humor, the authors recount experiences that illustrate Goldens' intelligence, gentleness, patience, and adaptability. These anecdotes also show how Goldens are truly social beings, enjoying life with other members of their pack (both canine and human) and inserting themselves totally into the fabric of one's family.

In many respects, this is a love story. The authors experienced unconditional love and devotion from their two friends and reciprocated with absolute commitment to their well being. Not a day passed without mutual expressions and demonstrations of these feelings. The stories told in this book reflect the range of emotions that characterizes such close relationships: anticipation; excitement; humor; joy; pignancy; sadness.

For people who have opened their hearts and lives to a canine companion, this book confirms the value of such an experience. For people who are considering the acquisition of a canine companion, this book illustrates the wisdom of such a decision. Whichever experience you bring to this book, be prepared to laugh as well as weep as you learn about Tank and Tiffany and the joy of living with Goldens.

Reviews

"Relationships are interesting, not only for what they reveal about our thinking, actions, and emotions, but also for the insights they provide into why we think, act, and feel as we do. In Tank & Tiffany... a love story, Hal and Joan Herber capture a 14-year relationship that they shared with their two Golden Retrievers. The Goldens, Tank and Tiffany, are extremely intelligent and perceptive—characteristics that their two-footed friends celebrate through seven exquisitely written chapters. Readers will discern within these chapters the mutual commitment and respect that marked this 14-year love story, which, though written by humans, was created in large part by Tank's and Tiffany's ability to communicate without words.

In fact, in a chapter titled "Speaking without words...," the two Goldens communicate precisely (and often in humorous ways) how they interpreted the well-meaning efforts of the taller members of the pack to care for them. For instance, consider the following brief excerpt involving Tiffany and Hal:

...Tiffany was out in the back yard while Hal was cutting the lawn on his riding mower. Tiffany found a ball and wanted to play catch with Hal. She tried to run along side the mower but Hal ordered her away and told her to lie down. Hal continued to mow while Tiffany pondered the situation. Finally, as Hal came across the lawn, Tiffany got up and dropped the ball precisely on a spot Hal would have to cross if he kept on his chosen path. She stepped back to her designated place and waited. (p. 33)

This and any number of other telling situations would suggest that oral and written forms of verbalization are superfluous when it comes to teaching and learning in a tightly knit pack such as the one that Tiffany and Tank enjoyed. Of course, lessons learned from such encounters need not be accredited simply to communication between humans and Goldens. As a classroom teacher of 40 years and a German Shepherd lover of that many years plus 10, the value of being placed "in the learner's seat" from time to time has not been lost on me. Yet it took the stories of Tank and Tiffany to bring home the wonderment and humor of this learning process.

Careful not to exaggerate the qualities of Tank's and Tiffany's canine intelligence, the Herbers have written a book that avoids typical pitfalls such as attributing human emotions to animals or translating animal actions into human cognitions. Instead, readers—whether dog lovers or not—will find the stories told here to be engaging because they chronicle the simple joys and sadness that characterize any enduring relationship. That theirs is a relationship shared in pictures and words across geographic locale and time, within parameters that are neither neatly bounded nor predictable, will make Tank & Tiffany... a love story a book to be read many times over."

Reviewed by:
Donna Alvermann, University of Georgia

About the Author

Hal and Joan Herber were involved in education and psychology their entire professional lives, first as public school teachers and then as university professors. They created instructional materials for elementary and secondary school children. They published textbooks for undergraduate and graduate students. They evaluated the effectiveness of their own instruction by observing and analyzing the performance of the students and teachers with whom they worked. They wrote articles reporting on the effectiveness of their work.

After Hal and Joan retired, they acquired their two Golden Retrievers. They naturally applied their teaching skills to the raising and training of their new friends. They also applied their observational and analytical skills as they interacted daily with Tank and Tiffany and nurtured their growth and development. They supplemented their observations with information gathered from texts on canine characteristics and behavior. It was natural for them eventually to want to write about what they learned by living with Goldens. This book is the product of that desire.