THE OTHER END OF THE LEASH

As many of you know, Will has a bad shoulder and he can’t play fetch or flying disc without problems. If I just work him on sheep and take him on long walks we can keep it under control, but the “short stopping” associated with fetching aggravates whatever is wrong with his shoulder. (I haven’t discounted surgery completely, but we are still in the ‘gather information’ mode.) That means that most of his exercise is working sheep, which works great when I’m home and feel like scrambling up the hill. But when I’m gone? You can’t just have anyone go work your dog on sheep, that would be a disaster, so it is important to find ways to keep Willie exercised when I travel.

Here are 2 videos of the game I’ve talked about in earlier posts. It’s really not that new, just another version of the inside “Go find it!” game that Karen London and I talk about in Play Together, Stay Together. However, being just as dense at generalizing from one context to another as any dog, it took awhile for me to think of playing the game outside. Now we do it every morning and I’m not sure who enjoys it more, me or Will.

I put Will on a stay, and then move to where he can’t see me and hide a toy. One week when we first started, I hid a stick I had handled in a huge pile of brush in the orchard pasture. It was fascinating to watching Will switch from using his eyes to using his nose–all sticks looking pretty much alike after all, and an entirely different proposition outdoors in a breeze.  It took him a good 3 minutes to find the stick, but when he did I’m not sure who was thrilled the most, him or me. Playing this game with your dog will teach you more about how dogs perceive the world than anything I can think of. Susannah gives the best analogy of dogs searching out a scent that I’ve ever heard in The Scent of the Missing, in which she asks you to imagine walking down a quiet street at night and hearing the faint sound of music, coming from… where? Dogs track down scent much the way we track down sound.. moving toward it, playing the “louder, softer, louder” game of localizing sound by moving toward the area where the sound (or smell) is strongest. But although sound can move through space differently depending on the environment, it is no where near as plastic as scent, which wafts on the breeze and flows this way and that like a smoke. How scent travels is affected by temperature, humidity and a butterfly in China for all I know.

I can illustrate far better than describe:  This first video is of Willie finding the toy in a ditch. The toy is completely out of sight, and I thought this would be a hard ‘find’  because I’ve never hidden toys in this area before and it seemed to me that the scent would stay in the ditch and not rise above the vegetation. More proof of what a total novice I am at scent work….

Here’s Willie searching for a toy that a novice to dog training (of any kind) might think is an easy find. After all, the toy is in full view (for us! It’s the blue disc in the shrub about 3 feet up). But, it’s above Willie’s head and dogs don’t tend to look up until they’ve been trained, as most trainers well know. Will’s first hidden object that was over his head was last week, and it took him three times as long a time to find the toy. He followed his nose all the way to it. In this video, it seems to me that he actually does see the toy as he’s turning back toward the scent. Trackers? Trailers? SAR experts? I’d love to hear any comments from experts on scent work about what Will is doing. I am LOVING learning about the world of scent (beyond my personal girlie obsession with lavendar and myrrh!)

Oh dear, I’m about to rave about a book that doesn’t come out until April (April? Why did the Advance Copy come so soon?). Scent of the Missing, by Susannah Charleson is so well written I don’t know whether to be inspired or to turn my computer off and never write again. It’s a story about her partnership with Puzzle, a Golden Retriever who she trained as an Search and Rescue dog. I’m not close to done (but came to work late ‘cuz I picked it up again this morning, couldn’t put it down…), but it’s a wonderful story (lordy I do love stories) and it’s exquisitely written.  Her descriptions of her dogs are laugh out loud funny and right on, and her use of language is so rich and sensory I’m not sure if I want to read her book or eat it. I’ll write more when it is out, but I can’t wait to write the blurb for the back cover.

Ironically, I wanted to write today about how entertaining and instructive it is to watch Willie use his nose to find the toys that I am now hiding for him outside every morning. I had planned to video him searching, because I never tire of watching how he casts around searching for the scent, and then follows the trace of molecules carried by breezes or funneled by vegetation. But alas, it was raining yet again when I went outside, hard enough to discourage any video taping. I’ll try this weekend.

I’m under a time crunch now too, trying to wrap up in the office so that I can drive to campus to listen to a panel debate between Michael Pollen of In Defense of Food fame, and representatives from agricultural interests. The University of Wisconsin initiated a “Big Read” program (a pun on “Big Red,” the college color) that has my vote for one of the most progressive and impressive moves by a University in a long time. A committee picked a book, this year Pollen’s, gave it to EVERY incoming freshman for free, and encouraged all the professors to include aspects of it’s message (“eat food, not to much, mostly plants) and the controversy it has started (“modern agriculture leads to unhealthy people) in their curriculum. UW is NOT taking a stand on the book’s thesis, but using it to create a community-wide discussion about the issues involved. It’s a no-brainer for my class (The Biology and Philosophy of Human Animal Relationships) but I don’t teach it until next semester. It’s a wonderful way to engage the entire community in a discussion that involves health, business, politics, social ethics, personal behavior, etc etc etc. I’ll keep you posted on the debate, should be fascinating.

Meanwhile, back at the farm: Here’s a few fall shots I took from the car on my drive into the office.

This is what soybeans look like as they are maturing in fall:

Here’s a typical roadside this time of year. The first beginnings of color (in this case, sumac):

This weekend friends and I will be picking wild apples and lots of them! Big plans for making apple/plum butter. Yum. I’ll post some photos of the process next week (it it’s not raining too hard!)

Well, Tender at the Bone is admittedly the title of a book about food (if you love food and good writing as much as I do, this is a fantastic book by food critic Ruth Reichl), but I borrowed the phrase to continue our discussion about dental health and chewing on bones. If you haven’t followed it yet, read the comments from my A Fully Functional Tooth? post, they add lots of meat to the conversation (sorry).

A few readers asked for more photos from Africa, so I thought I’d combine topics and send some more pictures of our time with the pack of African Wild Dogs.

Relevant to dental health, here’s a photo of the mouth of “Jones,” the 4 year old breeding male who was darted and radio collared when we were there watching. What I think is interesting is how good some teeth look (keeping in mind the comment made earlier reminding us that white, clean teeth are not necessarily healthy teeth) and how bad the 2 problem teeth are. The bright red area on the lower gum, by the way, was probably caused by either the act of predation that morning or from ingesting part of the kill, and was only temporary.

But, look at the lower canine and upper incisor. Ouch. I’ll have to ask Dr. McNutt how common it is to see a set of teeth like that, but I’d guess it’s not uncommon at all. There is a high rate of injury (and death) in African Wild Dogs, either from lions or from injuries received while taking down prey. What happened to these particular teeth? Who knows… could be from chewing on bones, or from strikes by horns of ungulates?

In case the photo above is a little bit more intimate than you want to get with a AWD, here’s a portrait showing off their huge, gorgeous, cartoon animal ears.

And here’s a photo of the pups just seconds after an adult had walked in and regurgitated for them. It all happened behind the bush, and was over, from start to finish, in about 4-5 seconds, but you can see one of the pups licking his lips, apparently having been one of the lucky ones and getting his share of the food.

Meanwhile, back at the farm: Will is back to chewing on his stuffed Kong in the morning, and I haven’t gone out to find just the right real bone to give to him and Lassie. Admittedly, although I have decided to let them eat carefully selected bones for a short time, I haven’t yet gone looking for them.

It was sweltering hot and humid last night (okay, all is relative: hot for here at this time of year). Mostly it was humid without a breath of fresh air. It’s a bit better today, and tomorrow it will be better still. Can’t wait for the nights to get cool again so I can snuggle under a blanket with Lassie on one side and Willie on the other!

True confession: I haven’t finished the book The Wolf in the Parlor. I might not, at least not in the near future. Here’s why:

As I said in my last post, the author’s thesis is that “people and dogs, around 12,000 years ago, linked their evolutionary paths together and evolved socially and physically to take on supportive roles. He argues, according to the reviews, that humans lost some of our brain power because dogs took over those functions, and dogs lost some of theirs because we became their protectors and nurturers.” It seems downright churlish of me to stop reading before I read for myself the full extent of his argument, but what I’ve read in the first 60 pages has put me off a bit.

I mentioned earlier that the thesis itself sounded a bit simplistic, but I love speculation and the more the merrier if it’s based on good, solid information. But Franklin’s supporting information seems thin, at best. Here’s an example: Interested in the early evolution of the domestic dog, the author goes to his local library. But he finds little of value, he tells us. He says “Some of the more promising works included a few generalized remarks about the development of the dog; they all sounded the same, and had a ‘just so’ tone to them.” He goes on later to say that the books he ended up checking out were also a disappointment. “Most were superficial, showed some misunderstanding of biology, or were otherwise unsuitable…”. Never in this section does he mention other ways of researching the topic.. he writes as though he accepts that his library has all material relevant to his question. As a lover of libraries, I can tell you that even really, really good ones can only house a small portion of relevant books, and many of those are profoudly out of date. As a science writer, I would assume he is adept at internet searches…?

Eventually, in the books he checks out (we never know which books those are), he finds references to a paleontologist named Stanley Olsen, who spent decades finding and measuring fossils of domestic dogs (dogs can be distinguished from wolves by their shorter muzzles and smaller teeth). He published some of this work in 1974, and Franklin moved heaven and earth to find a copy (The Origins of the Domestic Dog: The Fossil Record) and traveled to the University of Arizona to interview Olsen. Let me be clear: I’d give a lot to interview Olsen myself, he sounds absolutely fascinating and extremely knowledgeable. But 1974 is 35 years ago, and what we’ve learned about the fossil record since then is astounding.  Still, I love that Franklin went to meet him–but what about other sources of information about the evolution of the domestic dog? Surely Franklin found many interesting books on that topic? And what books did he read? He is a science writer after all, so I expected him to clearly list his sources.

I turned to the back to see if he had read, for example, Ray and Lorna Coppinger’s book Dogs, its subtitle being “A Startling New Understanding of Canine Origin, Behavior and Evolution.” But there is no bibliography or reference section, a surprise unto itself. I turned to the index, and Coppinger is indeed mentioned, but only briefly, and only in regard to a discussion about dogs losing the terminal portion of the hunting sequence inhibited (find, chase but don’t kill and eat). Franklin loves Coppinger’s suggestion that dogs are wolves with the ‘kill’ portion of their behavior inhibited, but adds that other scientists “. . . criticized Coppinger’s idea for various technical reasons, …” but doesn’t tell us what those were. Neither had he read Coppinger’s book; he learned about him in a manuscript being edited by James Serpell (now that’s a book I can’t wait to read, I’ll alert you as soon as I find it, don’t know if it’s out yet.)

There are some wonderful sections of The Wolf in the Parlor. Franklin clearly adores dogs and the connection between them and people. He is not only smitten with his current Standard Poodle, he credits him for saving his life (I skipped to the end). If I had no other books to read I’d finish the entire book, and someday I imagine I will. But right now Horowitz’s Inside of a Dog is luring me in, and I just got a book written about a search and rescue dog that looks like a page turner. The wolves in the parlor are just going to have to lie down and stay for awhile.

Meanwhile, back at the farm: It rained! Oh boy oh boy, it finally rained, after almost 3 weeks of no rain. I’m the first to admit 3 weeks isn’t long in many areas of the drought-stricken country, and I know it’s flooding right now in some areas, but we really, really needed the rain and just looking at the moisture soaking into the ground feels so nurturing and good. Willie and I got to go to a new place to work sheep; a good friend and neighbor’s not far away just got a small flock to work her rescue BC on. We had a ball; Will was wonderful, I was a bit slow–not being used to faster reacting sheep, but a good time was had by all. Well, maybe not the sheep, but Will was excellent around them and worked them very quietly. The trick with Will is balancing his speed with his lack of confidence (too slow and he loses power and confidence, too fast and he starts the sheep running.) We’ll be back soon I’m sure!

Here’s a video I took this morning, in the rain by the way, of Willie & Lassie playing with their Chewber. At first you’ll just see Willie, while I make silly noises to hype him up and get him exercising without having to stress his shoulder by fetching or leaping. It takes him longer to get moving than usual (because I have the camera?), but you can see how he runs and shakes the Chewber as if he was trying to kill it. (What was that about the final stage of the hunt being inhibited? Just kidding, I think Coppinger is right to some extent on that; I don’t think I’d use a wolf as a herding partner!).

As I do every morning, I asked Will to lie down and let Lassie get the toy. Watch how she turns and looks at him when she returns. Anthropomorphically, I always imagine her saying “I’ve got the toy-oy. Nee Nee Nee Boo Boo!”

Well, I had wanted to write about a book one of you asked about: The Wolf in the Parlor, but life seems to have its own schedule and I have only just started it. It is one of the gazillion books I am sent by publishers to review and I have to admit I have a hard time keeping up. (But I’d miss them if they didn’t come! It’s one of those high quality problems.) The book is by Pulitzer prize winning science writer Jon Franklin and has received rave reviews from the kind of places that authors dream of (Publisher’s Weekly, Booklist etc.)

As I said, I’ve just started it, but I can tell you that the book’s main thesis is that people and dogs, around 12,000 years ago, linked their evolutionary paths together and evolved socially and physically to take on supportive roles. He argues, according to the reviews, that humans lost some of our brain power because dogs took over those functions, and dogs lost some of theirs because we became their protectors and nurturers. It sounds interesting, although admittedly, a bit far-fetched to me (what of all those cultures in which dogs are considered pests?  what about all the others things that happened around 12,000 years ago, like the domestication of plants?), but I will finish it this weekend with interest. I’m all in favor of speculation; even if it turns out to be dead wrong, it causes us to do a lot of thinking.

I have to admit, with apologies to the author, that I was originally put off when he begins by explaining that most of his life he thought dogs were of little interest. Along with his hypothesis of why dogs and humans are so closely linked together, the book includes his personal journal from the land of dog-neutral to the world of dog lover.  Although I suspect I will appreciate his journey, it struck me a bit at first as yet another “I didn’t understand and now I do and so you should too” books that plop themselves in book store windows on a daily basis. How many thousands of books are written by people who start out depressed or totally disorganized or not caring about animals, and then have an epiphany and want to tell us all about it and how now they get it and we should too.

Oh dear, I sound so cynical. My apologies. Perhaps I’m just a tad tuckered, having gotten home late at night after speaking at the Humane Animal Welfare Society in Waukesha WI about cat behavior. Don’t get me wrong, I had a ball, it is SO fun to talk about cats and their behavior with other cat lovers, but it’s a long drive and I didn’t get home til after 11 pm. This from the girl who likes to be in bed by 9:30!)

On the up side, even in the early pages, Jon writes beautifully about how a standard poodle named Charlie wormed his way into his heart and mind, and integrates the personal part of his world with his life as a science writer. He mentions that science writers are, in a way, like old time naturalists, in that they know a little bit about all aspects of science: a rare occurrence now in the age of specialization. It will be interesting to see how his personal relationship with a dog and his intellectual knowledge as a science writer blend together into speculation about the origins of our relationship and our eventual evolution.

The other book that’s getting a lot of media attention right now is Alexandra Horowitz’s book, Inside of a Dog. That’s sitting on my desk, and it would be wagging it’s tail for attention if it could. I’ll pick that one up next!

What about you? Have you read either of these? What books have you picked up recently that you found especially interesting?  Send them in, and then I can have an even bigger pile of books to read beside the couch!

Meanwhile, back at the farm: All is well, at least it will be if I ever get out of the office and outside. There are weeds that need pulling, windows that need washing, sheep that need worming, vegetables that need cooking, apples that need collecting, and most importantly, dogs that need a lot more attention than they’ve gotten this week. I have one more thing I HAVE to do today (ignoring the endless lists of SHOULDS) and then I’m out of here. Oh boy, Willie and Lassie, here I come!

And here’s a little fall color, I’ll be wallowing in it soon!

Good news. Mostly. Will has recovered from his 5 + hour root canal, but I remain a tad tweaked about the definition of a “fully functional tooth.” I choose the root canal for Will instead of an extraction because the vet specialist said it would leave Will with a full set of “fully functional teeth.” After the 5 hours of anesthesia and $1,600, the same vet said “His tooth is dead, and thus will become more brittle and more easily broken, so be sure to never let him chew on anything hard, like bones or hard toys or raw hides.”

Uh, no bones? Not even relatively soft, raw knuckle bones, like the big beef bones that Lassie and Willie get several times a week? “Nope.” The rest of our conversation, in which I was far more polite than I was feeling, included me asking “Have you ever seen a dog chew on a real bone?” (answer = no) and “Wouldn’t you consider chewing on a bone a normal behavior for a dog?” (I really was polite, honest.)

Fact is, if I had known before the procedure what I knew after, I would have made a different choice. (Note a comment came in from a reader who said she had a root canal done on her dog and the tooth broke not long after; she had to have it extracted eventually anyway.) However, it turns out (thanks to the kindly email of one of our readers) that extractions have their down sides too. I’d known it was more intrusive on the dog (Will’s tooth was the huge premolar in the upper jaw, the one w/ 3 roots embedded in the jaw), but I wasn’t told until recently that the teeth around an extraction tend to build up more tartar and may require the dog to be anesthetized more frequently to have his teeth cleaned.

However, I’ll admit to being a tad tweaked at the vet dentistry specialist, who was extremely nice and clearly very caring of Willie, but who didn’t give me all the information I needed to make an informed decision. But mostly, I was mad at myself. Why hadn’t I done more research before hand? Why hadn’t I lived on the internet the night before finding out every possible fact I could before I met with the specialist? Oh I’d done due diligence in a way, talked to 4 vets, found a great specialist who could see Will in a quiet but highly respected vet clinic, but still….

A dear friend, who also is a veterinarian, listened to me tell my story recently and said: “Vets who specialize in dentistry always tell you never to let your dog chew on bones…  no matter why you go to see them.” It  makes sense, if you think about it. Who are they going to see but dogs that have trouble with their teeth, including ones who broke a tooth when chewing on a bone?

So here’s my question to you, dear readers: what’s your take on the correlation (causation?) of chewing on real bones and broken teeth? After all, something broke Will’s tooth, and maybe it was chewing on a bone I gave him. Is there any research out there on bone chewing and teeth breaking? Probably… I’ll see what I can find, meanwhile, I’d love to hear your experiences. How many of you let your dogs chew on real bones without having problems with damaged teeth?  How about the opposite?

Meanwhile, back at the farm. It’s fall, it’s gorgeous and I love it! Here’s some New England Asters blooming in front of the side of the barn and a diagonal drain pipe:

And here’s Mr. Will last night in the evening light, moving the ewe flock so that I can put down their supplemental hay. Note pudgy Brittany (Spears) in the middle, and the small white lamb 2nd from left who magically oozes through the fence and gets back to her mamma no matter what we do….

Here’s a video of Self Handicapping that I took 3 years ago, when Will was a young pup and Lassie was the stronger of the two. It’s a lovely illustration of appropriate dog play, showing how the stronger dog self handicaps to avoid overwhelming the weaker player.  Lassie, even now, is capable of pulling with a great deal of strength, but in this video she clearly damps down both the power of her pull and intensity used when she shakes her head. She moves more slowly and with less power than she would when playing with me.

There’s another piece to this video that I  just love: when Lassie decides she is done playing she gives Willie a very clear signal that play time is over. (Not long after she looks at me when I say “Jim! Turn the TV down” in the background!). She gives a second (more obvious) signal when Willie doesn’t seem to get the message… did you see the first one?

I showed this at the seminar on Dog Play (Dog Play DVD)  to illustrate appropriate and inappropriate play and followed it with a second video thatmakes me all gooey whenever I watch it. It was taken 2 years later, and shows the now grown up, and very strong Willie self handicapping while playing tug with Lassie, who at 14 is now the weaker one. I can’t tell you why, but it makes everyone who sees the comparison feel all oxytocin-y and big of heart.

Meanwhile, back on the farm: Or, rather, back at the office right before I drive away to pick up Willie from his FIVE AND A HALF HOUR root canal. I have been flipping out over here… five + hours under anesthesia? Oh lordy, be still my heart. (I know, I know, I am such a wuss. It’s pathetic. Talk about oxytocin! Is there such a thing as oxytocin poisoning?)

One of your fellow blog readers alerted us to a study recently published in Behavioral Processes titled “Disambiguating the “guilty look” by Alexandra Horowitz. It is a creative and well-designed study that supports what trainers, ethologists and behaviorists have been saying for years: “No, your dog isn’t expressing guilt when he cowers at the door when you come home to find he’s peed on the carpet. Rather,  he’s waving a white flag, perhaps to inhibit you from punishing him any further, and is responding to YOUR behavior rather than expressing guilt at his earlier actions.”

Here’s a summary of the study: 14 dogs and owners participated, and only dogs who were able to successfully perform a sit/stay were included.  The owner was instructed to place the dog on a sit/stay, and then show the dog a treat and use whatever cue they would normally employ to forbid the dog to take the treat (I’m assuming “no” or “leave it”). The treat was placed at the same distance from the dog in each trial, and then the owner left the room.

When the owner returned the treat was always off the floor.  The experimenter either picked up the treat and gave it to the dog, or picked it up and kept it herself. When the owner returned, he or she was informed by the experimenter if the dog had been obedient or not (not necessarily accurately). If the owner was told the dog had been obedient, the owner was been told to greet the dog on their return. However, if they were told that the dog had been disobedient, they were told to scold the dog in whatever way they would normally do. (Note that one potential pair was eliminated because the owner refused to scold the dog. Interesting. What would you have done? I think I would have participated to support the research, but kept my ‘scolding’ to the disappointed voice I use sometimes: “Oh Mr. Will…. what did you do?” It’s quiet and low key and yet Willie’s ears go down and his face changes in a way I want to call “concerned.” Needless to say, I never do it “after the fact,” but I probably would have in this case because of my interest in the results of the study. I don’t think it would have set Willie back in any substantial way, but if I thought it would I wouldn’t have considered it.)

In the study, each dog/owner pair was given 9 trials, two control trials in which the dog was allowed to eat the treat, and others in which the owner was correctly informed or mis-informed about whether the dog ate the treat or not.

The dog’s behavior was video taped and later analyzed, categorizing 9 behaviors often used to describe a “guilty look” by owners: head, ears or tail down, raising a paw, moving away from the owner, licking, rolling onto the back, etc.

The results are not only what you’d expect, but even more so: Not only was there no correlation between behavior usually categorized as “guilty” and the dogs who actually did eat the treat, it was found that the highest rates of these behaviors was found from dogs who had NOT eaten the treat and who WERE scolded by their owners. Trials in which the dogs did eat the treat (even though handed to them by the experimenter) and who were scolded showed fewer deferential (my word) behaviors than if they had not gotten the treat.

You can’t get much better evidence for what we’ve all been saying for years: “No, your dog DOESN’T “know  better! He’s just afraid of what you’re about to do!” It’s true that there is a potential glitch in the methodology, but I think the author handles it well in the discussion.  Since the dogs who got the treat were given the treat by a human, even after being told to leave it alone, it is hard to know if the dog itself considered its behavior as being disobedient… the author’s paper after all is about being careful about making attributions (or mis-attributions) and this is a potential problem. How do we know that the dogs perceived themselves as being “disobedient?” The author did do subsequent tests to follow up on this potential problem and I think it does indeed support the original results.

Speaking though, of mis-attributions, I do have a small bone to pick (a treat to take away?) from some of the statements in the paper. Although I have been on record in speeches, books and articles that of all the emotions, guilt is the one least likely to be experienced equivalently by humans and dogs, I am included in a list of “ethologists, animal behaviorists and other scientists” who describe a “dog ostensibly guilty of a transgression…“. My interpretation of her words was that I and others were indeed arguing that “head down, ears down” is the posture of a guilty dog. That, it turns out, is not what she meant: she meant that we had written that pet owners use these postures to describe what they believe is a guilty posture. She clarified that in a gracious email to me after I wrote her about it.

I suspect my interpretation of what she wrote was in part based on something she said earlier in the Introduction: “And yet, ethologists, animal husbandrists, pet owners and others .. frequently use emotional terms to describe or explain an animal’s behavior.”

She is certainly right on target that I, and others are comfortable talking about expressions of emotions in animals. However, I’m not clear why she mentions “ethologists, animal husbandrists and pet owners” etc, but not psychologists, neurobiologists, etc. etc, including those who study emotions in animals and have for many years.

What I think is important here is to help people understand what of their emotional life is shared with dogs and what is not. Pure primal terror or rage, for example, is a profoundly primitive experience, and yet much of our own emotions are overlain with a cognitive component that dogs probably don’t share…  Surely, as I write in For the Love of a Dog, the shared emotional life of people and dogs is a glass half empty and a glass half full.  We need to take this debate beyond the two polarized perspectives of “You can’t talk about emotions in animals” and “I know my dog is guilty! Just look at him!” That’s what I tried to do in the book (and learned a ton myself by writing it.) This study is a good step toward helping professionals convince the general public that people are much too quick to attribute guilt to their dog. My own observations are that dog owners are quick to attribute the emotions least likely to experienced in similar ways by people and dogs, and miss the ones most likely to be shared (like fear). More on this topic, it’s a big one, but I’m curious what you’ve found: what emotions are you, your neighbors or your clients most likely to ascribe to their dogs (and why!)

Meanwhile, back at the farm: Willie has a broken tooth and goes in tomorrow for a general cleaning and a close examination of the tooth. (Large premolar on the top jaw.. of course the largest tooth in the mouth with three roots. jeeeez.) Then we’ll know if he needs a root canal, an extraction or just (oh please!) just a cap on it. Please do whatever you can to help me remember to NOT give Willie his stuffed Kong tomorrow morning. It is such a habit with me I am in angst already that I’ll forget!  Notes will be all over the house!

Here’s a photo of Lassie and her chiropractor, Dr. Mark McCaan. I love the comparison of facial expressions! Anyone want to venture what emotion Lassie’s face expresses?

I’ve loved reading your comments about favorite dog toys. You all inspired me to take a photo of Willie and his current favorites. . .

From Left to Right, back row, the toys are:

Brain Twister (long, green thing, Canine Genius), Chewber (red disc), Invincible Rings (blue & black rings, JW Pet), Skinneez Stuffingless Dog Toy (long, grey thing draped onto orange) and Plush Leo with Stuffies (big, round, orange hollow globe, by Canine Genius.

The three toys in the front are Planet Dog’s Orbee Ball, Planet Dog’s Strawberry and the eternally essential Large size Kong. Please keep telling us about your favorite toys and we’ll try to get them on the website. (And our dogs will be so grateful!)

Here’s what happened when I said “Take it!” to Willie:

Right now there is no question that the Twister is his favorite toy, but then,  Will LOVES to shake things. (I helped this along by reinforcing it as a way to help Will literally and metaphorically shake off tension, and as a way to learn to calm down when aroused.) It is also new, and I have no doubt that has an impact too.

Every morning Will and Lassie start the day by eating frozen food out of their Kong… I let them outside to pee and they run in, run to the frig and wait for me to hand them their frozen Kong. It takes them a good 25-30 minutes (lucky me!) to get through the food I have carefully smashed into the Kong the night before.. so I can read, write and be lazy on the couch.

After that I’d say he loves all the other toys equally. There are at least 30 of them (I should count) in their 2 toy baskets but these are the ones that he keeps going back for. I don’t take my own advice about keeping only a few toys out to avoid the dog getting bored with them. . . probably because I never see any sign of Will getting bored!

Meanwhile, back at the farm: Here’s a shot of the lambs grazing up in the high pasture. They are doing incredibly well and are a joy to watch. Also with them are Martha 2.0 (in front on right, black legs and face) and Barbie, both of who are thin and are getting a bit of corn and oats along with the lambs. By the way, you can see Will in the background. The flock had been loosely dispersed, grazing away until I asked Will to walk up. You can see he just got to the edge of the ‘flight distance’. . .  the sheep on his side have turned their heads and started to flock up.

I hope you enjoy the weekend, and that you get some time off. I have just been reminded of how precious life is, having attended a service for a friend and colleague who died suddenly and tragically in a bicycle accident. What a reminder that this is it… this day, this hour, this moment. I’m going to turn off the computer (except to play with photos from Africa), go outside and harvest thyme and oregano and mint, make another 2 loaves of carrot bread, make another batch of Zucchini Yum and garden garden garden. I’ll intersperse that with walking with the dogs, working Will on sheep, rubbing Lassie’s belly and watching the WWSDA Herding Dog Trial outside of Portage, WI. I hope you can do something that feeds you in all ways too.

Life. What a gift.

At the risk of sounding self-serving, I wanted to write about Willie’s new favorite toy. We do sell it on the website, but we sell it because our dogs think it is the best thing that happened since liver and chicken.

It’s called a Canine Genuis Brain Twister, presumably because it was designed for dogs who love to shake things. Truth be told, I’m not sure where the ‘genuis’ part comes in, nor does the thought of my dog’s brain twisting make me happy, but as luck would have it, Willie can’t read and pays no attention to such humanly concerns.

Here’s a photo of it: (I have one of Willie playing with it but forgot to bring the cord to connect the camera to  my computer. sigh. I’ll add the pic sometime soon when I can get my brain organized.)

What you can’t tell from this photo is that it’s about 14″ long twisted and twice that uncoiled. It’s soft and plush and a great size for a medium or large dog. Willie has played with his relentlessly for a week and it, to my amazement, shows no signs of wear. Yet. Do not hold your breath. But I am interested in his response: he usually is a tearer and ripper… give him something he can disembowel and he’ll make quick work of it. I buy toys like that on occasion when I figure we both need a little luxury in life. He rips the $12.99 toy into shreds in 5 minutes, and I say “Well, it’s just as good as a dinner out!”  But one can’t feed one’s dog $13 toys on a daily basis, at least not if you still need some money to buy dog food, much less food for you and your family. This toy, because it is so fun to shake, doesn’t seem to bring out Will the Ripper. Yet.

I’ll keep you posted. We are big on toys this week at the office, and I’d love to know what new toys you’ve found that you like. Will and Denise’s Cooper are also crazed over another toy called Plush Leo With Stuffies (who comes up with these names anyway, she asked, respectfully?). It’s one of those great toys with toys inside of it. Will can pull the inner toys out in seconds, but he absolutely adores the toys inside. (He likes the carrot best. Such a healthy choice.) They are his favorite toy to bring to me to play fetch with him. They are also great for hiding (but also small enough that I’d be careful with them around large dogs….)

His other favorites are still the Chewber, Skinneeze, Planet Dog’s balls and a half chewed up rubber tube used by dairy farmers. I’d love to hear about your dog’s favorites…