Oh, what a joy to be home in fall on the farm. It may have rained much of the weekend, but that's okay, we needed the moisture. In spite of the rain I got to spend much of Sunday out in the country with Willie, Lassie and weekend visitor Brody (the Cavalier) out in the hills collecting wild apples. Five huge buckets full. Yum yum. Yum for us... I made applesauce much of Sunday afternoon (thanks to friend Harriet who leant me her Foley Food Mill; now that's a handy item) while the dogs slept. Yum for the sheep: the ewe flock got to crunch away on juicy apples that I tossed into their feeders. The lamb flock is separate (I don't castrate the ram lambs, so the boys are now old enough to breed their mommas. Not a great idea!) and has access to lots of wild apples on their own, so everyone Read More
COMPUTERS ARE NOT DOGS
Monday, 5:16 pm. Well, I had planned to write something wise and witty about dogs, people and play. I was inspired by the closing ceremonies of the Olympics (finally I can get some sleep, but I'm going to miss them, darn!), and found myself thinking more about how important play is between people and dogs. But that was then (this morning) and this is now (this evening). I've spent most of the day on machines and technology... dealing with issues related to the new website, creating an ad for the new play booklet to send out electronically, learning new software, etc. etc. I've been riding this computer almost all day, and am ready to rip every hair out of my head. Why, oh why, can't we use operant and classical conditioning on machines? If only I could click and treat when the new Read More
Playing with Dogs & the Olympics
I'm a little behind today, because yet again I stayed up too late watching the Olympics. Addicting, aren't they? And I'm not even that interested in sports... I was the girl who stood in right field in enforced elementary school softball games saying "Please don't hit the ball to me, please don't hit the ball to me." But I can't resist the drama of watching other people turning purposeless games into lifetime commitments and prime time excitement for the rest of us. How fitting that today our new booklet about playing with our dogs just arrived from the printer. I co-wrote it with Certified Applied Animal Behaviorist Karen London, and there is nothing like writing about how to play (and how not to play) with your dog to get you thinking about WHY we play with our dogs, HOW we play and Read More
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