Search Results: Away To Me

This morning I tried to get a good photo of Redford confronting Will, but failed miserably. That’s great news… I couldn’t get the photo because every time Will walked within twenty feet of Redford, the ram turned and walked away. I did take a few photos, but my battery died so I can’t upload them…

Recently a blog reader wrote in after one of her dogs snapped at her. The incident generated a lively conversation in the comment section, and I thought it was worth writing a post about it. So many of us have been in a similar situation that I thought it would be a valuable discussion for…

My copies of the novel arrived!!! Away To Me is a story of a woman who risks everything to save a dog. Really, that’s all you need to know. But I thought you might enjoy reading a few excerpts from the book, just to tickle your fancy. Here’s from Chapter One, page 3, when protagonist…

Pippy Tay didn’t look much like a purebred Border Collie; I’d bet money that most shelters would have described her as a BC/Labrador cross. She was big, almost 60 pounds, as long as a table, and had a large, square head that had Labrador written all over it. But she was a Border Collie, the…

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…

I’m continuing my tradition of “little labor on Labor Day,” and so am posting a pot pourri of pictures in hopes you will enjoy them. I’m writing this as Jim drives us back from the WWWSDA Midwest Championship Sheepdog Trial outside of Hudson, WI. Skip and I didn’t run, but both dogs got to work…

A few nights ago I took the dogs out for their last potty around 10 pm, and things didn’t go quite as planned. Instead of walking sleepily out of the house to his favorite place to pee, Will took one step into the fresh air and hurtled like a bullet into the dark behind the…

Lately there has been an increase, in my area anyway, in “Board and Train” businesses (B & T). You give them your dog for one, two, or three weeks, and get back a dog who is . . . what? Much better behaved? Perfect on leash walks, never jumps up, and only barks on cue?…

I was at a sheepdog trial recently when a friend reminded me of an incident from long ago that I described in For the Love of a Dog: Understanding Emotions in You and Your Best Friend. Here’s the text: At first, all I saw was a white blur out of the corner of my eye. …

I’m taking a holiday break, surrounding myself with laughter and friends and lighted candles. And good food. Lots of that. Yum. Whilst I cavort, I’m repeating one of my favorite posts from the past, ten years ago this month, actually, December 29th, 2009. If you’re busy and need a quick oxytocin rush, scroll to the…

It’s getting to be that time of the year when a lot of us travel. Sometimes our dogs go with us, other times, not. I thought it was a good time to repeat a post I wrote in 2010 about doing all I can to keep my dogs safe and happy when with a house…

I love it when my dogs bark as someone drives up to the farm, and I’m not alone in appreciating being alerted by a dog. Masai villagers keep dogs, they told me, because they bark when lions try to break through the thorn bush barrier to kill their cattle. Tulip, our Great Pyrenees in years…

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about how important it is to remember that “reinforcement” and “punishment” are defined by the receiver. I’m not sure what got me thinking about it. Perhaps it was learning about a study that found cows perceived being yelled at as distressing as being shocked with an electric prod. Or…

This is a throwback article, one that I originally wrote in August of 2008. I thought of it today because I’ve been going back and reading what I wrote about Willie when he was Maggie’s age. It’s been invaluable–so many things I forgot about Willie’s early years that I wouldn’t have remembered if I hadn’t…

Have you seen the stage play, Sylvia, in which a man brings a stray dog home from the park and adopts it? The dog is always played by a woman, who often barks at appropriate (and inappropriate) moments. Except, as a person playing a dog, she doesn’t say BARRR RARRR or WOOF. She says HEY!…

Positive reinforcement seems so simple, doesn’t it? Your dog does something you want them to do, and you reinforce them. Except, it’s not so simple, and, because we are human, we fudge it up. Here’s an excerpt from The Puppy Primer, pg 25, which I will spend much of July updating. (A new updated version…

When I was seeing a lot of clients I could always tell when I was tired because I started working with the dog, rather than training the owners. Perhaps that’s the irony of language: It makes communication easier in one sense, and harder in another. Things were so simple and clear when I was working…

[We interrupt this program for a public service announcement: Amazing news about my forthcoming fiction novel! AWAY TO ME will be featured in a Goodreads giveaway from December 2nd thru December 16th! 75 lucky winners will receive Advanced Reader Copies. The book actually comes out Februrary 24, so you can be the first in line! (And, great Christmas present!) Here is…

In hopes it will be helpful to others in the same situation, I thought I’d outline how I handled the introduction of lovely little Maggie into the family. Here’s some background on the actors: 1) Willie: Eight-year old BC neutered male, at one point extremely aggressive to unfamiliar dogs, relatively comfortable outside now with new…

  Do dogs “tell” jokes? I ask because a friend sent me a thought-provoking interview on Substack with NY dog trainer Jess Erace. In it, she argues that dogs can indeed tell and “get” jokes. Here’s one of her examples: “We were at her house for dinner and everybody was sitting at the table. Her…

Here’s an interesting question for you: What does a dog intend when it repeatedly licks the face of another? Muzzle licking has traditionally been interpreted as an appeasement behavior, usually done by a younger dog or a subordinate to the muzzle of another. Erik Zimen, one of the world’s experts on wolf behavior, labeled face…

My UW students just took their last exam, and along with grading all 150 of them, I’m off with Jim to pick up the pup tomorrow. He’ll be nine weeks, a male Border collie of excellent herding lines who are also carefully bred for health and temperament. I’ve known his dad for years, always considered…

I originally called this post “Barbie’s Not Always a Nice Girl,” but then I thought about what the title would look like on Google and the kind of people who’d click on it. Hmm, not really my “brand,” as they say. I thought though, that you’d be interested in yet another interaction between Barbie, my…

A colleague just sent me a link to one of my favorite science and behavior blogs, that of Harold Herzog, the author of  Some We Love, Some We Hate, Some We Eat: Why It’s So Hard to Think  Straight About Animals. I use his book in my University class, The Biology and Philosophy of Human/Animal…

With apologies for the change in topics, I just have to respond to a comment on my last post, and to the hundreds of comments I’ve heard over the last 20 + years, about the guilt associated with putting a dog down. It is always wrenching, heart-breaking to euthanize a beloved dog, but taking a…

Feeling a tad raw today. A combination of the untold suffering in the world, worries about the future (mine, yours, our country’s, humanity), and recovering from facial surgery on an eyelid–just a small carcinoma, but eyelid surgery is not to be recommended. Nor is anesthesia during reconstructive surgery when you have CFS and POTS symptoms.…

A reader asked if I’d go through what I do to prepare for a trip when I can’t take my dogs along. I thought it was a good question for all of us, and a lead in to what could be a fruitful discussion. After all, leaving one’s dog(s) is hard, and the only way…

I’m taking some summery time off this week, and so am repeating a post from May, 2014, How to Talk to Other Dog Owners.  Wanna talk about it? Here it is: When I was seeing a lot of clients I could always tell when I was tired because I started working with the dog, rather…

Starting to travel again? As our country gradually opens up, the question of what to do with our pets if we don’t take them with us arises. I’m curious what choice you make, and what advice you have for others, about whether to kennel a dog or get a house sitter. Of course, both have…

No, not at a bar, you’re on your own there. I’m talking about people, ones with leash-straining, eye-bugging dogs, walking up into your and your dog’s face. I thought it would be interesting for us to have a discussion about how to handle it when others begin a face-to-face interaction that you or your dog…

Growing up in the 1960’s, girls like me were advised to “play hard to get.” (I notice now that the phrase was not “be hard to get,” but “play hard to get.” Sigh.) This, we were told, would make us more attractive to boys. I had no trouble with this in high school, because the…

IT’S ALL BACK ON THE FARM THIS WEEK: Well, not exactly, because some of the photos are from Minnesota and the Star of the North Sheepdog Trial. But first, from an evening very much at home, Jim, Skip, Maggie and I recently spent the night in our staycation farm-meets-safari tent. We’ve learned to keep all…

What a difference a day makes. Here’s what happened late last week between Will and Redford: Yep, that’s Willie running away. He ran back about five feet, then turned and walked back toward Redford, with me encouraging him.  For reasons I don’t  understand, this time Redford turned and walked away. And here’s what I really…

Bark magazine recently had an interesting article about a dog trained to a series of vibrations instead of verbal or visual cues. Tai, a Labrador retriever, wears a vest that allows the handler to signal him through different types of vibrations–pulsed or steady–placed above different legs. In other words, a  pulsed vibration over the right…

This is a repost of an article I wrote in 2014 (July 7) about the motivation behind barking. Since it’s been five years, and since barking plays such an important part of our experience with dogs, I thought it would be fun to repeat it. I’ve done some minor updating, but the post still focuses…

I’ve thought about intake interviews every day since someone wrote, “Yes, please tell us what you asked clients during an intake interview.” I don’t know why this question speaks to me so much, but perhaps it is because of my interest in human psychology. I’ve always said that my two favorite species are people and…

Tootsie’s taken a back seat lately, given all the sheepdog work I’ve been doing with Maggie and Willie lately, so I decided it was high time that she and I did something extra fun together. I was inspired in part by a book and a DVD related to scent games. After all, Toots is a…

In August of 2011, I wrote an article titled “The Nail Wars,“ about the value of a “grinder” (also called a Dremel, but that’s a brand name) when trimming a dog’s nails. I’m updating and revisiting it here, after a friend mentioned that nail trims were a big issue at her house. Now that I…

That could actually be a great title for a content-rich blog, but I’m afraid the blog I was working on got trumped by 1) the blog site crashing for several hours, 2) Tootsie’s recurrent and unexplained UTI and need for an X-ray, and 3) Nellie the kitty showing up limping and clearly very, very unwell.…

Can you give your dog a pill? More to the point, can you give your dog a pill three times a day without any stress on you or your pooch? A recent online discussion reminded me how difficult it can be to get some dogs to take their medicine, and I thought it might be…

True confessions: I’m just back to work, after a lovely holiday weekend with Jim, Maggie and Willie. (Tootsie got to stay home with a farm sitter and be Dog #1 all weekend. I suspect she loved it.) No time then to do research on this week’s blog, but here’s a scrap book of some of…

So many photos I want to show you!  Here are a few from our last days in Wales: We went back to Worm’s Head on Tuesday, after a stunning 4 mile hike around the Three Cliffs area. We hiked down this hill to the beach and watched a beautiful sunset.     We watched the…

Bringing home a dog when you have another one at home (or two or three or more)  is one thing, but bringing a cat into a resident cat’s territory is another thing altogether. Besides litter box problems, most of my “cat clients” were about aggression between a resident and an incoming cat. Blending cat families…

Here’s a video of Willie playing with a Lily, a 4 month old female Dogo Argentino. He has just met her, and after a brief greeting by the farm house, we walked up the hill to the Orchard Pasture. I love watching videos of dogs playing; it seems that you can see so much if…

Maybe not a 1,000 in this case, but what words would you put with this photo? What do you think is going on here? I’d love to hear what you all think. I know the dogs, the context and what happened before and after, so after I collect your input I’ll let you in on…

Yeah well, this is something I know well, except, uh… how come it took me 2 years to figure it out with my own dog? Sigh. Here’s the back story: As many of you know, my 3 year old BC, Willie, is both a joy and a challenge. He’s joyful, incredibly responsive, the perfect dog…

  Happy Day! The first kitten just went to her new home. OJ, the little orange and white female, is going to a good friend and yoga coach, Scott Anderson and his wife Collette. They both adore cats and have moved heaven and earth for them if the need arises (think the feline version of…

Some wonderful things to report today. The first is that I had a restful and relaxing vacation. I saw lots of friends, gardened, cooked and got back to working sheep with Willie (more on that soon). I took an entire three weeks off, which felt terribly indulgent, but also desperately necessary. The last two years…

I’m working on a post about the comparative behavior of wolves, coyotes, African Wild dogs and domestic dogs, but here’s a short digression for the cat lovers. An adult lioness in the Maasai Mara marks a bush after rising from a nap. You can clearly see the stream of urine in the photo. Aren’t you…

You know I love Willie; sometimes I think almost too much. But I’ve never loved him more than I have this morning, after finishing the book, Part Wild, by Ceiridwen Terrill. Willie is a dog. Inyo, the focus of Part Wild, is a wolf-dog who Ceiridwen adopted as a puppy. The book is a brutally…