As many of you know, Karen London and I are writing a booklet for people who have adopted an adolescent or adult dog. We're hoping it will be useful not just for individuals, but also for shelters and rescue groups, and ultimately for the dogs themselves. Right now our first draft is out to readers, looking for feedback about how to make it as good as it can be, and we're working on the cover. That's where you come in. We've been looking at commercial photographs, trying to find just the right one, and so far nothing has struck us as THE picture. And then I thought of you . . .I know that many of the blog's readers have dogs they've adopted as adolescents or adults, and how cool would it be if we could put one of YOUR dogs on the cover? So here's the deal: If you think you have a Read More
Archives for 2011
We All Need a Laugh
I'll grant this is as much for me as it is for you all, but I imagine I'm not the only one who could use a good laugh around now. You may have seen this already, and you may have mixed feelings about putting animals in the place of humans . . . but, oh, oh, did I laugh at this video! Anyone know much about it? Meanwhile, enjoy! (I tried to upload the video itself, but the file is too big, so I'm stuck with just providing a link... (although on preview the video played directly, hope you can see it!) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EVwlMVYqMu4 It does bring up an interesting issue which we've been discussing in my UW class: that of putting animals in the place of humans for the sake of humor (or making ourselves feel superior?). I'm normally not a fan of such practices, it just Read More
Helping Puppy Mill Dogs
This weekend I visited a wonderful woman doing rescue for small breeds, mostly bichons from puppy mills. I had somewhat randomly discovered that she lived close to me, and went to visit in hopes I could help out a bit. I also had a selfish motivation: as many of you know, Karen London and I are writing a booklet on adopting an adolescent or adult dog, and we are always looking for input from people in shelters and rescues. There were 4 or 5 dogs from puppy mills that were terrifically shy; so much so that they ran away from people, even after being there for a very long time. Obviously, this is a very common problem in dogs who grew up in almost total isolation, and was one of the challenges she was facing I hoped I could help with. We had one session, and it looked like it might be Read More
Do Dogs “know” how long we’ve been gone?
How many times have you heard that "dogs have no sense of time"? I've heard it and read it over and over and over again, and always wondered why anyone thought they knew it to be true. Or not. How would we know? I've been asked this question often, and always answered I simply didn't know, but that it seemed reasonable that they had some sense of time, even if it wasn't exactly like ours. So yeah for researchers Therese Rehn and Lindsay Keeling for doing a study, published in Applied Animal Behavior Science, that attempts to answer that question. ("The Effect of time left alone at home on dog welfare," Vol 129, 2011) In brief, they recorded the behavior of dogs left by their owners for 30 min, 2 hours and 4 hours, and found that if the dogs had been left alone for 2 or 4 hours they greeted Read More
The Food-All-Over-the-Floor “Method”
I mentioned earlier that Willie has re-injured his shoulder. He's going in for a consult with my "sport medicine vet" on Wednesday, but meanwhile I am playing the not-always-so-fun game of keeping him quiet and not stressing his shoulder. Our two most challenging times are when he is waiting for his dinner and when he is greeting someone he loves. Otherwise it's not too difficult. Leash walks outside? Trivial. Around the house? Harder, but very doable, (though not so good for my getting things done, but I sure have caught up on a lot of television lately!) I lie down on the living floor and rub Willie's belly for several hours every evening (when we would normally be playing with toys in the house, after our walk or sheep work outside.) Otherwise he's chomping on food out of a hollow toy Read More
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