Meet Colby. Colby was adopted by my friend Renee at about seven months of age. She came up from the south, parentage unknown. Renee was curious, and so sent off a DNA sample to the folks at Wisdom Panel® to see what they had to say about her heritage. Here's what came back: The hound heritage was not a surprise. As a matter of fact, when Renee first showed me the dog’s photo on a website, I said to my friend who has always had herding breeds, “She has an adorable face, but you do know she’s probably got a lot of hound in her, right?” The “Treeing Walker Coonhound” ancestor sent Renee to this link that illustrates why the word “Treeing” is in the dog’s name. After viewing the video, Renee wrote: Yesterday on our walk, Read More
Archives for September 2016
Free to a Good Home? (Booklets, Not Dogs!)
No, not a dog, I'd never advise anyone to ever give a dog away! What I'm hoping to go "Free to a Good Home" are our booklets on house and litter box training whose prices have been radically reduced so that shelters, rescue groups and veterinary clinics can give them away for free. I began thinking about this when the Peggy Adams Animal Rescue League ordered 2,000 Way to Go booklets early this year. Kristi and the adoption counselors originally bought the booklets because their research showed that house breaking problems were a common cause of dogs being returned to their shelter. I talked recently to the shelter's Director, Kristi Jackson, who said that since they began giving the booklets out in their adoption packets, their returns and hotline questions have decreased. Of course, Read More
Green & Gold: Early Fall in Wisconsin
Ever wondered why the Green Bay Packer's colors are green and gold? Well, I never did until I began noticing that the entire world seems to turn green and gold in early fall in Wisconsin. I doubt that's the reason they picked those colors, but it sure is fitting because around here, the Packer colors show up at the same time that the world cloaks itself in the same hues. It's remarkable how much of the out of doors is green and gold right now, so much so that I can't exaggerate it. (Or, in the words of Ryan Lochte, "over exaggerate".) The entire natural world does indeed seem to be an explosion of green and gold. I've mentioned it to several people now, and every one of them listens, then comes back later and says "You're right!" Everything is green and gold! This Read More
Small Dogs, Big Dogs. Love Both? Or Not?
I was going to title this Size Matters? But then, well . . . you know. But today's question IS about size, and whether a dog's size influences your interest or attraction to it. Full disclosure: I grew up in a dog-loving family that gravitated toward medium to large-size dogs. Comments were made by my parents and friends about small dogs that weren't particularly positive. "Yappy," my father called them. According to one relative, "Rug rats" weren't even "real" dogs, that distinction being reserved for Labradors and German shepherds. Then, early in my career, I began volunteering at dog training classes, and eventually began my own training and behavior consulting business. And lo and behold, I discovered that the smartest dog in one class was the Miniature poodle, and that the Cairn Read More