THE OTHER END OF THE LEASH

A short post today, but I hope a helpful one. It’s inspired by the “mud luscious and puddle wonderful” nature of spring, and the need to wipe off Will’s paws as we enter the house when it’s wet outside. As I was drying Willie’s paws a few days ago, I thought about how much easier it is now that I say “Ready?” right before I pick up each leg. Since I started communicating my intention (“now I am going to pick up this paw”), he is beginning, on occasion, to pick up a paw himself, but more often he will shift his weight so that it is less awkward for him. (Yep, I could train him to pick up each paw on cue… also a potential solution, but keep reading for some potential benefits of a more generalized cue.)

Keep in mind that this is the dog who, as an adolescent, growled at me  when I picked up a paw to dry off the mud. That was 3 years ago, and I remember saying something like “Oh, don’t be silly” and continuing what I was doing. He growled one or two more times, but we worked through it and I haven’t heard him growl at anything in years. However, he doesn’t enjoy his paws being cleaned, as most dogs don’t, and the process got me thinking about how little control a dog has over having his/her body moved around, even gently, without any say in the matter. That’s especially difficult if there is any pain involved in putting more weight than usual on one limb. I’ve always been aware of Will’s bad shoulder, and have always been extra careful about picking up the other paw, but a few months ago I started saying “Ready?” right before I picked up a paw, giving him a chance to shift his weight himself.

It’s made a difference to both of us. I lean down and put my hand close to a paw and say “Ready?” and he either shifts his weight or picks it up. Paw cleaning is not only faster, it feels like Will and I are moving down the same path, instead of trying to go in opposite directions. This is a cue that has so many applications; Will’s structural troubles require acupuncture and chiropracty, and he’s not the kind of hail-fellow-well-met who takes being handled lightly. I would bet the farm (and, hey, I have one) that handling Will with force and punishment would have created a severe aggression problem within a few months. In both cases, we give Will lots of options, using patience and communication during the treatments. He adores both practitioners, but he literally hides behind me when the greetings are over and it’s time for treatments. But we work through it, sort of like a dance; sometimes asking, sometimes quietly insisting, but always with an awareness that Will desperately needs to have some say in what is happening to him.

I know many others use cues like “Ready” for a variety of reasons. I’ve heard similar cues most often in obedience, meaning “Okay, time to start working together”. But I’ll bet there are many examples from your own experience of using a cue to communicate your intentions to a dog. I’d love to hear them. I think we’d all learn something from hearing about all the ways that concept can be used. (By the way, signals like “Ready” are called “meta-communication,” meaning “communication about communication.” A play bow is an example in dogs, meaning “Everything that happens next is in play, don’t take these bites and growls seriously!”

Meanwhile, back on the farm: The new fence is working beautifully (more on Will and the fence soon), the bottle lambs have learned to use the self feeder, though they still mug me relentlessly for more, and Snickers has stopped looking for her 3rd lamb, the one I had to take to a friend because 1/2 of Snicker’s bag dried up. The tulips and blossoming trees are in full bloom. Here are Tulip’s tulips, the flowers I planted over my Great Pyrenees grave, her body deep in the soil, nestled onto a bed of of hundreds of tulips, warm and safe in the small hill in front of the house, where she’d stand strong and tall, and bark out her great, white presence to the world.

I’m inspired to write this after crying over the happy ending of a lost dog saga. A Golden bitch, who had been rescued from a hellish life in a puppy mill, had escaped from her new home and run into the woods. She was friendly and loving to everyone when she was in her foster home, but once she took off she became terrified of human contact. She was spotted numerous times, but ran off every time she saw someone, even from familiar dogs and her new, beloved human. The story reminds me of the time that I lost Tulip. It was only for nine hours, and it was one of the worst days of my life. She was old by then, with a severely weakened hindquarters, and I knew she’d never go running in the deep snow voluntarily.

After hours of searching the woods in a snow storm, calling and stopping at neighbors, we found her late at night, having slid partway down a small cliff, wedging herself between the ground and a large branch. We would never have found her if it hadn’t been for dear, wonderful neighbors, who thought they heard her barking and led us to where they thought she might be. We trudged through deep snow in the pitch dark, ears straining to hear something that might lead us to her. All 4 of us stopped cold when we heard a deep bark floating from the woods. “There she is!” someone said, and I began to cry. Not from happiness, because it wasn’t her. I knew her bark, and it wasn’t her. It was 10 pm and my frail, old dog was somewhere in the dark and the snow and the storm and the bitter cold and it wasn’t her. And then, moments later . . . I could cry remembering it, we heard a second bark. “TULIP!!! That’s her, I KNOW it is!”

We scrambled into the pitch dark woods, still unsure of where she was, and how to find her. Brambles tore at our clothes and the snow fell from branches overhead and melted down our necks, but we had heard her, and nothing was going to stop us from looking more. It was Jim who found her. His flashlight found two glowing eyes… maybe a raccoon, maybe a possum, but no, wait… it was big and got whiter as we approached, and there she was, stuck like a puppy put into a Christmas stocking, held fast by a fallen tree to the side of a steep creek bed.

It took almost an hour to extract her off the steep, slippery slope, and get her back to the farm. She had most likely been pinned, immobile in the bitter cold, for almost nine hours, and she couldn’t move her back legs. She couldn’t walk unaided for a week, but she slowly gained her strength, and graced the farm for another year. I will never forget the nightmare of that nine hours, and can barely imagine what it is like to lose a dog for three weeks (or forever).

I know not all stories end as happily as Tulip’s or the Golden who was found after extensive searching (by over 50 people!) this weekend, but I thought it was a good time to mention some things I’ve learned about finding lost dogs. I hope you all can add to the list, in hopes it will help some one down the line.

If a dog is missing:

First, ask what kind of dog is missing? According to Kat Albrecht, who wrote the highly recommended Pet Detective, lost dogs fall into three categories: highly gregarious ‘wiggle butts’ who go to the first person they see, aloof dogs who were never comfortable with strangers and avoid them until starving or weather stressed and “xenophobic” dogs, who are afraid of new things. Often, as was the case with the Golden, these are dogs who were not given healthy puppyhoods, and freeze and panic in new situations. Once scared, they won’t come voluntarily to anyone.

This describes the Golden who was just recovered. She adores people, once she is comfortable, but typical of this group, she ran from everyone who was trying to help her (even familiar dogs.) She was eventually recovered only because a large group of people canvassed the area, alerted everyone within miles, kept careful track of sightings, put food and clothing with familiar scents out and used live traps baited with food and familiar clothing. She was found, sleeping soundly, in a live trap over the weekend.

I’ve seen several cases like this, in which even dogs who were well-socialized become disoriented and don’t respond as you would expect. One client had a Husky who traveled 30 miles in one day, and avoided everyone who tried to call him until he got to a farm with a lot of other dogs. He was spared from being shot as a coyote only because the person at home called her brother to come kill him, so that she didn’t have to. Once he arrived, the ‘coyote’ was identified as a dog, and they managed to confine all the dogs in the barn. Albrecht says that country dogs tend to travel much further, city dogs stay closer by, in part because of highways and fences. (By the way, she also says that ‘outdoor’ cats vanish because something happened to them.. they are most likely injured or trapped. ‘Indoor cats,’ on the other hand, rarely go far, and are most often found close to home, usually hiding silently somewhere within one or two houses away.)

Here is what I know to do if your pet goes missing (please add to the list if you like):

1. Tell everyone. Go to every house, post signs everywhere, tell the delivery men, the vets, shelters within 50 miles… every one. And don’t leave it to just one visit, don’t hesitate to go back a week later with a new flyer (with a phone number to call)… lots of people will throw the first one away.

2. Put out live traps with food and clothing that smells like you. Check them relentlessly. This is how the Golden was finally captured. This is especially useful in country areas and for dogs who become shy once they are lost. Do not think you can predict how your dog will behave once he is lost in the woods… I’ve seen some amazing transformations.

3. Do not count on your dog to bark or your cat to meow. Jim and I had walked within 50 yards of Tulip hours before we found her, and she never made a peep. While we searched, I had felt sure that she would bark.. she was a Great Pyrenees for heaven’s sake, and she barked more than any dog I’ve ever had. But I hadn’t thought about the context of her barking. She never barked for attention or when she was playing. She barked at deer across the road, when she heard other dogs bark (which is how we found her), when cars drove up and when the coyotes howled. Her barks were alarm barks.. ALERT ALERT! but they were never made to get our attention to play, get food or be petted. I was completely surprised that she didn’t vocalize when we walked past her (she HAD to have heard us, we called ’til we were hoarse), but it makes sense now.

I had a cat, Ayla, who was badly injured by a stray cat and crawled under hay bales to die. By the time I got back from out of town she’d been missing for days. I searched the barn that night and morning, and thought I had heard, each time, one quiet, tiny meow, but nothing else. Pippy Tay found her… as I cried in the barn that morning, sure my cat was somewhere dying in the barn, I said “Pippy, where’s Ayla?” I didn’t expect anything of Pippy Tay, I was just asking for sympathy. But Pip turned and began to dig on top of a 10 foot high pile of hay bales. I found Ayla under 400 bales, almost dead from dehydration and an infected shoulder. Albrecht says that is typical of cats. If they are injured, they go to ground and remain silent, so don’t call for your cat expecting her to call back.

4. Don’t give up. Be relentless. One client’s dog ran feral in the woods for an entire Wisconsin winter, and was captured in spring. He went back to being a happy house pet without a hitch, even though he had been surviving on his own for months.

And, of course, there’s prevention, but that’s another topic. I’ll leave it for now at ID your pet! and look forward to hearing your stories and advice.

And how can I resist adding a photo of Tulip… suitably attired for a Christmas card of years ago?

A friend and colleague (Toni Ziegler, an internationally known primatologist) sent me an article in a journal I usually never see, Hormones and Behavior, and I was sure you’d be as interested in it as I am. The authors, M. Nagasawa et. al., found a correlation between the level of an owner’s oxytocin and how much their dog tended to gaze directly at them.

First off, you probably know that oxytocin is the “feel good” hormone that is associated with lactation and social bonding. Someone called it the “wine and candle light” hormone, because it seems to play an important role in social relationships and feelings of trust and affection. (People are more trusting of strangers if oxytocin is sprayed into their nose–leading me to speculate in For the Love of a Dog that we should all be armed with a spray bottle of the stuff). Oxytocin correlates with friendly social behavior in rats, monkey, sheep, you name it, and even has been found to calm “depressive tendencies” and anxiety in people.

The authors of the study first surveyed 55 people to evaluate the level of relationship with their dogs. (They asked: “How much are you satisfied with your dog?” and “How much do you feel you can communicate with your dog?” Of course, if I’d been asking, my questions might include “How often to you rub your dog’s belly?” and “How important is your dog in your overall happiness?” and “How many months would you say you spend more on your dog than yourself?” and “Don’t you think you should consider buying yourself a new pair of pants before you buy another dog toy?” But then, it wasn’t my study….)

Each owner/dog pair then came to the researchers, and was video taped in a room with the owner sitting in a chair. At first the owner was alone in the room for 20 minutes, then the dog was allowed in for 30 minutes. Once inside, the dog was allowed to move around the room freely, but was asked to sit on cue every 3 minutes. The owners could talk to their dogs and pet them, but not give the dogs treats. Before and after, the owner’s heart rate and blood pressure was taken, and they were asked to provide a urine sample both before and after as well.

Here are some of the results: The 55 owners sorted into 2 groups: 12 of them reported high levels of satisfaction with their dogs and ALSO had the longest duration of times that their dog’s looked (“gazed”) at them during the experiment. Those people, whose dogs looked at them the most, also had significantly higher levels of oxytocin after the experiment than the people who reported lower levels of satisfaction and whose dogs looked at them for shorter periods of time. Additionally, there was a significant correlation between the frequency of “exchange bouts” (looking, talking) initiated by a dog’s gaze and the level of oxytocin in the owner’s body. In other words, the more the dog looked at the owner, the higher the level of oxytocin IF the owner was one of the one who reported a high level of satisfaction in their dog. There was no correlation between duration of gaze and oxytocin levels in the (larger) group who reported less satisfaction and whose dogs looked at them for shorter periods of time.

What does all this mean? Well, if you put your science hat on, you know to be careful of correlations. It seems reasonable and (common sensible) to argue that IF you are strongly bonded to your dog, then you have a surge of oxytocin when he or she looks at you and you look back. (I think my oxytocin is rising right now, just thinking about Lassie’s face!). However, I’ve always wondered if some individuals inherently have lower levels of oxytocin and that makes them less affiliative with others, a bit more stand off-ish. Dogs too? Could that explain why some dogs are puddles around people and others more aloof? Levels of oxytocin do correlate in mice, for example, with less or more affiliative behavior, so it seems reasonable that it could occur in people too.

That could create another hypothesis for the results. Do people with inherently higher levels of oxytocin tend to be more bonded to their dogs? However, a good study should account for this, and indeed, there were no significant differences between oxytocin levels before the experiment between the 2 groups of people. So it looks as though it was the interaction itself, during the 30 minutes that the dog and owner were together, that increased oxytocin levels. Although none of us can accurately guage our oxytocin levels without measurements, I swear there’s a feeling I get that correlates with an oxytocin surge. It’s the way you feel when you look at a puppy, or a kitten, or a two year old child… and get what I can only describe as “goo-ey” and “warm” and just overwhelmed with loving feelings. Know what I mean? Do you thank that is part of what makes a dog a “forever” dog or a “heart dog?”

Whether we can feel  it or not, oxytocin has got to be good for us. Remember when I said that oxytocin decreases anxiety? It seems to have a positive effect on many systems: it is produced in the hypothalamus and decreases activity of what’s called the “hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis” (use that when you want to be cool, you could also just call it the stress response though!) In other words, more oxytocin, less adrenalin, less anxiety, less immune suppression, etc. We’ve always known our dogs are good for us (mostly… unless, uh, they’re not), but here’s a biological explanation for it beyond the fact that they make us feel good.

Speaking of oxytocin (with apologies for indulging myself), here’s a photograph I found last night, buried in files on my computer. I wasn’t going to use it, but it makes me all goo-ey and oxytocin-y to look at it, so I thought it was relevant. It’s of me and my Tulip long ago, several years before she passed away. Here’s hoping you have a dog right now that raises your oxytocin too.

And here’s another feel good picture, fall leaves that fell this weekend after a hard, hard freeze.

xxx

I promised I’d write more about treating thunder phobia in dogs, beyond the earlier posting that it won’t make things worse if you try to comfort them. It’s such a serious problem for some dogs (and their humans), and everyone who has a dog who suffers from it deserves some help (or just support!).

All I can do here is to summarize some of the treatments I have known to work.. a thorough discussion of treatments requires a booklet unto itself . I encourage you to send in comments to let others know what has worked for you, because if there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s that there is no one treatment that works for all dogs.

Counter Classical Conditioning: This is the first treatment I recommend, and it is especially effective in mild or moderate cases. I’m doing it now to prevent thunder phobia in Will, who is one of the most sound sensitive dogs I know, but so far has not reacted with any anxiety to thunder. In this paradigm (described in a a general sense in The Cautious Canine), you pair something the dog adores (food or play best) with a damped down version of what scares him. Your goal is to condition your dog to associate thunder with something he loves, so that his emotional response to the loud noise is “Oh boy!” rather than “Oh No!” To get this to work:

~ You need to start at whatever stimulus first elicits any sign of fear in the dog. Dogs backward chain storms so well that you can use them as meteorologists… beginning to pace and whine when the wind comes up, and in extreme cases, when the barometer drops long before the storm rolls in.

~ The thunder or other stimulus has to be mild enough to prevent eliciting extreme fear (you can also use CDs or tapes of thunder, but need to have speakers distributed around the room, overhead being best).

~ The “treat” (food or play) has to be highly desirable so that the emotional response it elicits is more powerful than any fear elicited by the thunder.

~ The thunder/noise has to come first… so that it becomes a predictor of something good.

~ You need to proceed in a step-by-step manner, gradually linking louder and louder thunder with the food or play.

In other words, you hear thunder in the far distance, you say “Oh boy! Thunder Treats!” and give your dog a piece of chicken, or throw the ball if they are more motivated by play. Your goal is for your dog to emotionally respond to thunder as a predictor of something good, just like a clicker in clicker training.

Yeah, I know. Believe me, I’ve been through it myself with several dogs. You see the problem here…. how, exactly, does one make arrangements for thunder storms to begin in May with tiny, little quiet thunderettes and then gradually work their way up into glass-rattling boomers once your dog is ready for it? Well, you can’t (if you can, please write soon), but you can give your dog the ‘treat’ (I used food for Pip and play for Luke & Willie) whenever the thunder is relatively quiet, and then just stop once it becomes loud. I’d run outside with Luke and play ball when the barometer dropped and the wind came up, continue playing until the thunder started far away, and then come inside when the thunder began to get so loud that it would overwhelm Luke’s love of ball play. Then we’d go inside, I’d let him hunker beside me, rub his belly, sing and laugh. He got through it in two seasons (I’d call his case a moderate one, not at all severe, while Pip was severe for a few years but came through it fine after two summers of thunder = chicken.).

Pheromone Therapy: I’ve had several clients who had good success with Dog Appeasing Pheromone, or DAP, which is an artificial replicate of the pheromone produced between the mammary glands of a lactating bitch. It is species-specific and has no detectable odor and has the huge advantage of requiring you to buy it and plug it in. Period. Perhaps the easiest behavioral treatment known to science. It has some good research behind it and I’ve recommended it to clients for several anxiety-related problems in dogs and cats (Feliway is the brand name of one of the feline versions) and I’d estimate that it appeared to be helpful in at least half of them.

Acupuncture/Acupressure: I’ve never used this specifically for thunder phobia, but as I’ve said earlier, have used it for a variety of problems with good success.

Wraps: I’d be curious about reader comments on their success with wraps (originally developed by Linda Tellington of Tellington Touch). The theory is that in a general sense, swaddling provides a sense of comfort and safety. More specifically, the speculation is that the continuous neuronal stimulation of the wrap on the dog’s body at minimum distracts him from his fear (a process often called “overshadowing,” in which one stimulus modality dominates an animal’s nervous system) or at best, creates the production of endorphins that de-activate the amygdala and create a sense of calm.

I tried a wrap on Pip and she certainly appeared to be “calm,” but then, that was because she pretty much stopped moving altogether. I wasn’t sure if she was relaxed or in what’s called “tonic immobility,” (or frozen with fear) but after about 10 minutes she lay down and went to sleep, so I relaxed myself and tried it the next time a storm came up. (Use it first before a storm.) It seemed to work miracles at first… she slept right through the next two storms. But wouldn’t you know, the next storm was a barn burner, and it never worked after that. Have you ever tried wraps? (I should add that Pippy looked adorable in an old pink T-shirt! It made me smile anyway!) There are many commercial products available now, but I’ve never seen any research that they would be more effective than wrapping a la Tellington Touch or using an snugly-fitting T-shirt.

A Safe Place: I wrote in For the Love of a Dog about a dog whose job was to protect acres of vegetables from deer, and who became so afraid of thunder he’d run through the electric fence and risk his life on the county highway. I designed, and the owners built, a ‘safe house’ for him, and his dedicated human, Barb, spent many a wild night hunkering in his straw covered cave giving him chicken in storms. It worked incredibly well, but it took one amazing woman about two months of dashing 200 yards across the lettuce and beans to get to the safe house before the thunder started!

Safe houses can be created inside houses too… I’ve had several clients who did the counter conditioning in a roomy closet or sound-insulated dog house, and ended up with a dog who was still a bit nervous about thunder, but simply went to her safe house and curled up and slept through the storm.

Sound Therapy: I’ve talked before about the interesting work of Leeds and Wagner in developing music specifically designed to calm dogs. Their work is based on solid biological principles, and I’ve seen many cases in which anxious dogs appeared to be calmed by playing their music. You can read more about it, and get a CD of the music by checking out their book, Through a Dog’s Ear.

Eliminating Static Electricity: Nicolas Dodman suggested a few years ago that part of a dog’s fear of thunder storms could be due to static electricity. One of the blog readers commented that she, in desperation, wiped her dog’s coat with an anti-static dryer sheet, and that it seemed to help. Interesting… I know that Tufts was doing a study of Storm Defender (a wrap that is designed to dispel static electricity), but I haven’t seen the results yet. Any one seen any studies on this yet?

The list goes on.... there are so many things that people have tried. Claudeen McAulifee has a good booklet on treatments from homeopathy to flower essences to melatonin, etc. It’s called the Big Bang! and it’s the only booklet I know of exclusively on the topic of noise phobias. She doesn’t talk about counter conditioning, but goes through many different kinds of non-intrusive treatments (including the use of pink light…… interesting!).

And last, but not at all least, Medication: Serious cases of thunder phobia can be life threatening. I’ve had clients whose dogs ran away, and weren’t found for days, and clients whose dogs jumped out of second story windows, mutilating their bodies in the process. I wouldn’t hesitate to suggest that someone talk to their veterinarian about using medication as a supplement to counter conditioning or other methods if their dog has a serious case of noise phobia. In the most serious cases the veterinarians I’ve worked with have prescribed both a tricyclic antidepressant (like clomicalm) and a fast-acting tranquilizer (like diazepam). In many serious cases, I’ve found over the years that a combination of meds, counter conditioning and a ‘safe house’ led to a successful resolution, but I would now add in music from a Dog’s Ear without a doubt.

That said, again, every dog is different, and not all dogs can be cured. As John Paul Scott said to me once, (of Scott and Fuller, and yes, I’m dropping names, I was thrilled to meet him!) not long before he died “Of course dogs are afraid of thunder, to them it sounds like GOD IS GROWLING.”

Meanwhile, back at the farm: Spring is glorious, gorgeous, wonderful and exquisite. it’s amazing how few days like today one needs to make an entire 5 months of winter worth it! There is also so much to do (besides grading 300 pages of essay exams and supevising the grading of another 900) it is overwhelming, but I”m going to focus on the good part!

Here are Tulip’s tulips from the window in the living room, showing the view she had as she overlooked the farm:

I fear you will all get tired of yet another photo of Mr. Will’s bright, expectant face, but it does remind me of spring! (This was taken a week ago, and wow is it different now. The leaves are coming out, the size of a squirrel’s ear, and right on schedule, or a little late, the warblers have arrived this morning. As colorful as any tulip (but too hard to get good photos of for me!). I’ll post more photos of spring at the farm as soon as I can get outside again….

As promised, I’m going to write soon about helping dogs with Thunder Phobia (and the very interesting issue of reinforcing fear and/or the behavior that expresses it) , but I couldn’t resist posting a few photos from this morning.

Here’s Mr. Will, front and center as usual, as I try to take a photo of the tulips that are blooming over Tulip’s grave. I named Tulip, in part, after the white tulips I planted in honor of my first Great Pyrenees Bo Peep. We buried Tulip with the hundreds of fresh tulips her admirers had spontaneously brought to a celebration of her life a few hours before we put her down.

Tulip the dog may have been all white, but her spirit was a rainbow of colors. The flowers are planted over  her grave, in the place that she spent so many hours, chewing on bones, surveying the countryside and barking at coyotes as they howled across the road. I’ve waited all winter in hopes the tulips would bloom, being at risk as they were from squirrels, mice and voles who love tulip bulbs like Tulip loved chicken. I surrounded and over planted them with bulbs that wild animals don’t like so much, like daffodils, scilla and hyacinth, and crossed my paws.  I can’t tell you what it felt like this morning to sit beside them, a joyful reminder that life goes on, and that our beloved friends never really die–at least not in our hearts.

Every morning I start my day writing a list of things that I am grateful for. Sometimes they are big things (Jim, my dogs, opportunities to learn, grow and improve relationships between people and animals) and sometimes they are small (the plaintive Wooo Heee song of courting Chickadees, the deep, purple blue of the first spring flowers). This morning I surprised myself, by adding:

I am grateful that none of my dogs potty in the house.

House training and elimination control is like health, isn’t it?  If everything is fine, you don’t really think about it much. But when it’s not, it can be overwhelming. I went through two years living with old dogs who simply couldn’t control themselves. Pippy Tay lost control of her anus in her last year of life (at age 15) and I picked up poop at least five times a day. Tulip had Irritable Bowel disease and problem with her pancreas, and a variety of unwelcome substances decorated my house with alarming frequency. (One of the things I am grateful for is that Jim never once complained about living in what felt like a litter box.)

Years earlier, when Luke was alive, I had to keep the door shut to an upstairs bedroom. The orange and  yellow shag carpet that was there when I moved in had clearly been anointed by other animals, and Luke never missed a chance to mark it until I finally ripped it out. (One could argue that a yellow and orange carpet deserves nothing more than to be urinated upon.. oh, the 60′s!)

A week doesn’t go by that I don’t get an email or phone call from someone who is having trouble house training their dog. Isn’t it interesting how simple house training feels once you get it, but how terrifically un-intuitive it is before you’ve done it repeatedly?  When Karen London and I wrote Way to Go, we were struck by how many people resisted giving their dog a treat for eliminating outside, and how common it is for people to give the treat long after the dog is done, and after she trots back to the house. Once you face the fact that you just have take your dog out every time you turn around,  give them the treat immeditely after they potty, and prevent accidents in the house… well, it usually goes so smoothly.  That’s not to say that some cases can’t be difficult: dogs who grew up going to the bathroom where they live, dogs who had health problems when young that interferred with training, etc. I am very sympathetic to the difficult cases, and I’ve seen some tough ones as you can imagine.

But for now, THANK YOU Willie and Lassie!  Lassie is susceptible to bladder infections, so I always look for a puddle in the dining room first thing as I enter the house (a sign her infection is back), but it’s been over a half of year since I’ve had to clean anything up.  Wow. Life is good.

Meanwhile, back at the farm. No new lambs, although I’m going to leave the office as soon as I finish this to check on the flock. Barbie and Dorothy are due any day, so they are confined inside the barn (and are none to happy about it. Barbie smashed into poor Willie as he was leaving the pen yesterday–this after he stood up bravely to an attack from Redford, I was SO proud of him). She went after me this morning. I guess if I was as big as she is I’d be in a bad mood too. She gets huge.. we call her “Explodo sheep” before she gives birth.)

I didn’t get any pictures taken this morning, started grading term papers at 6 am. But I did take the time to  write that I am grateful for the opportunities to travel to amazing places through my work, and to meet wonderful people all over the world. Here are two of my favorite photos from our trip to Sweden, thanks to Natasja at Hundens Osterlen, who hosted the seminar.

The Swedish “Stonehenge”

Isn’t this church gorgeous? It makes me happy just to look at it. That’s Jim at the end… it makes me happy to look at him too!

I started teaching my University of Wisconsin course yesterday, titled “The Biology and Philosophy of Human/Animal Relationships.” It is, granted, a lot of work, but I love doing it. I love the intellectual stimulation it creates, and I love working with 150 smart, motivated young people with minds like steel traps (okay, most of them) who are hungry to learn how to relate their education with the day-to-day issues of life.  We’ll be talking tomorrow about “humans and animals.” Or, is it “humans, and other animals?” What really makes us different from the rest of the animal world, and what makes us the same?

I love thinking about those questions, and I love how dogs are always reminding me that while we humans are special… different in so many ways than all the other animals on earth, we are also so very much the same. It makes me feel connected to the rest of nature. I like thinking of myself as an animal, but historically many people have been uncomfortable with that linkage. One of my favorite quotes is from the wife of the Bishop of Worcester, who, upon reading The Descent of Man by Charles Darwin said something like; “Oh dear, I do hope it isn’t true (that we are related to apes). But if it is true, I hope it doesn’t become generally known.” Too funny, too British (I can say that, me mum was British).

What about you? Are you put off by someone saying “humans and other animals?” Do you like thinking of your connection to your dog, as another mammal, or do you feel like that demeans you as a person?

No new photos from the farm today, but forgive me some nostalgia. Here’s a photo of me and my late Great Pyrenees, Tulip. She died last February, but for some reason I’ve been missing her terribly these last few days. Maybe it’s the lambs, and knowing that she’s not there to protect them anymore …

It’s a wonderful thing to hold a book you wrote in your hand, long after the writing and the editing and the discussions with the publishers about cover photos and who to ask for quotes on the back… My new book, Tales of Two Species: Loving and Living with Dogs just came from the printers, and I have to admit it feels good to see it. It’s a collection of essays written over the years for Bark magazine, published by Dogwise (who I call the Amazon of dog books). Working with the editors of Bark has been a joy, and collaborating with the folks at Dogwise has been equally delightful (I presume you are not shocked to learn that this is not always the case between author and publisher? I have been exceptionally lucky with my national books, having wonderful editors at Ballantine who have become dear friends. However, I have heard lots of nightmare stories from other authors. . . (no I’m not telling!)

Here’s a couple of excerpts from the book:

From the essay “Canis Cousins? Unraveling ancestral ties” in the section on Genetics, Ethology and Behavior:

“Dogs aren’t wolves, pure and simple. Except, uh, they are. Sort of. Sometimes. Lest you think I’ve lost my mind, I’d like to explain why the statements “dogs are wolves” and “dogs aren’t wolves” are equallycorrect. I’m writing about this issue because it’s inherently a confusing one, and if we really want to understand our dogs, it’s important to get it right.”

From the essay “A Peaceful Walk in the Park: Strategies for defusing tense encounters while walking a dog-reactive dog:”

“It’s okay!” she waves, her two Golden Retrievers racing toward your dog like cheerful, caramel-colored tsunamis. “My dogs LOVE other dogs,” she gushes, while your mouth goes dry and your heart stops, then resumes pounding so hard you think it might thump out of your chest. It doesn’t matter if the approaching dogs love other dogs–not if your dog barks and lunges every time she sees something with four feet. It’s YOUR dog who is the problem, and there you are, trying to be responsible, keeping your dog leashed and under control, while those around you let their dogs run free and turn yourrelaxing walk into a stress test.”

And finally, from an essay titled “Rites of Passage: Navigating the loss of a beloved dog.”

“Tulip was as beautiful in death as she was in life. Her long white fur covered her thin old body like a fluffy blanket. Her eyes were peacefully closed, and she looked as though she might wake up at anymoment and plunk her huge white head in my lap for petting. Tulip died at the admirable age of 12 years, 10 months, a legendary length of life for a Great Pyrenees. But this is not an essay about Tulip, although like many of our dogs, she deserves an entire Library of Congress written about her. Rather, it’san essay about coping with the death of our beloved dogs, and specifically, about how best to cope in the hours right after they die.”

[and how can I resist a photo of Tulip when she was still alive, taken by Amanda Jones?]

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The book is a “curl up n the couch with your dog” kind of book, so I guess it’s release at the onset of winter is well timed. At least, it’s definitely November here in Wisconsin… look at the difference between the pictures of the Japanese Maple in front of the farm house a month ago compared to now…. ah, the greys of November. Tomorrow the high is supposed to be 34, with high winds and sleety rain. This does not bode well for the planned “clean out the barn” day tomorrow, which includes scrubbing the cement barn floor with bleach after all the old straw and manure is hauled out by a bobcat (not the living breathing kind) and two strong neighbor boys (and okay, me and Jim). Wish us luck!