Ah, poopsicles, my current competition for Willie and Maggie's attention. It's too bad that their primary outdoor object of interest is, well, poop, because searching for something in knee deep snow is a great way to keep dogs entertained. (Luckily, we have a vast armory of treats that make it easy to reinforce our Recall or Leave It cue, and avoid being licked by dog whose breath smells like a sewer. We just have to watch them like hawks.) But watching Maggie plunge her nose into the snow, a nose that could clear a 200 acre dog park of poop in an hour, no matter how deeply buried in snow, reminds me how important scent is to dogs. Not to mention how snowy winters give dogs less opportunity to use their noses. And this is an opportunity that feels especially important to me right now, Read More
Healthy Dog Play in Georgia, Sweet Georgia
We're just back from a short week with good friends Jim and Peg in northern Georgia. Heavenly! They live on a gorgeous 200 acre farm and we got to enjoy the fun of 80+ new born lambs, and none of the work, thanks to our hard working hosts. Maggie and Willie got to work sheep every day, along with numerous long walks with the seven resident Border Collies on the property. Basically, we ate (Jim A. is the best amateur chef I know), walked (two stunningly beautiful hikes and lots of dog walks) and worked dogs (Peg is one of the top handlers in the country and gave me some invaluable advice). Sounds rough, doesn't it? Here's a huge shout out to Peg and Jim for their gracious hospitality. I thought you'd enjoy a sequence of dog play that I took with the camera on rapid fire "continuous Read More
Adopting Littermates… (Don’t)
The title of this post is a bit strong, but I do want to caution people from adopting two dogs from the same litter because "it's easier" to raise two at once (ask someone with twins if it's easier than having one child) or "we don't want our dog to be lonely." (Because you might be if the dogs are so enchanted with each other that they ignore you). I'm writing this now because we have gotten a number of questions about this issue lately: "Someone told me I shouldn't adopt dogs from the same litter, is that true?" Far be it from me to say what you should or shouldn't do, but there are a lot of red flags related to getting pups from the same batch. Before I say more, I should add that I've looked and asked around for any research on this issue and haven't found a thing that supports (or Read More
Summer Fun, from Frogs to Sheepdogs
It's a light post today, in celebration of the waning days of summer and a bucket of writing to do for speeches (both on "People, Dogs & Trauma,"one a Keynote at ADI Trainer's Conference in Denver, the other a Keynote at APDT in Hartford, CT), revising a chapter with Aubrey Fine in the Handbook on Animal Assisted Therapy, and working on my memoir.) Every day I ask myself what I am grateful for, and today I'm thanking the universe for this little green frog who is an Eastern Grey Tree Frog. (Apparently you can order them in a variety of colors. This one arrived in green.) There is no scale in the photo, but he is tiny, perhaps an inch and a half max. I never would have noticed him if I hadn't been on my daily round of picking Japanese Beetles off of my plants and dunking them Read More
Sunflowers Make Me Smile
Today's blog isn't quite what was planned, because Willie scared us by developing a mass on his foreleg that looked exactly like the sarcoma tumor his uncle Luke had at a similar age. Willie's mass developed quickly over the weekend, looked like a copy of Luke's tumor and is on the same part of his foreleg as Luke's was. Scary stuff. But good news! It looks like it is just a cyst, so in all probability it is nothing to worry about. The vet did still recommend taking it off, in part to prevent it growing and causing trouble, and also to be absolutely sure that it isn't cancerous. Willie will have the surgery tomorrow, which means much of our sheepdog work will have to go on pause until he recovers in 14 days. He is NOT going to like being back on a leash (argh, breaks my heart to do this Read More
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