(A true story.) Meet Hola. She’s a nightmare, but it’s not her fault if she tackles strangers and chews on furniture, or if she runs after buses and fried chicken containers and drug dealers. No one ever told her not to. Worse yet, she scares her family. Hola may be the most beautiful Bernese mountain dog in the world, but she’s never been trained. At least not by anyone who knew what he was doing. Hola’s supposed master, Marty, is a high-functioning alcoholic. A TV writer turned management consultant, Marty’s in debt and out of shape; he’s about to lose his job, and one day he emerges from a haze of peach-flavored vodka to find he’s on the verge of losing his wife, Gloria, too, if he can’t get his life—and his dog—under control.  Desperately trying to save his marriage, Marty throws himself headlong into the world of competitive dog training. Unfortunately, he knows even less than Hola, the only dog ever to be expelled from her puppy preschool twice. Somehow, together, they need to get through the American Kennel Club’s rigorous Canine Good Citizen test. Of course, Hola first needs to learn how to sit.  It won’t be easy. It certainly won’t be pretty. But maybe, just maybe, there will be cheesecake.

The author recounts his decision to earn an MBA from a prestigious Ivy League school to become a management consultant, recalling how his first two years in corporate America were marked by misguided advice, politics, and power struggles.

Product Description: Nice guys, pushovers, soft-touches and suckers:Tired of being walked all over? When the waiter brings you something you didn’t order, do you assume he knows best?Are you ready to demand the respect you deserve? Martin Kihn doesn’t care what your answers are, because of course you need this book...read more

Product Description: Marty Kihn was the nicest guy in the world, until he got fed up with always coming in last. On the day he turned forty, he set out to transform himself from beta male to alpha male to a$$hole.

Product Description: A former stand-up comic who decides to go straight and get a real job by going to business school, Marty Kihn writes of his first two years at his consulting career. In it, he details the essence of the life he leads: how consultants are always on the prowl to make major corporations into clients, then tell them little or nothing about what they already do, and of course, speak with great authority on topics they know nothing about...read more