Search Results: The Other End of the Leash

This weekend I went to my favorite local bookstore (Arcadia Books in Spring Green, WI) and spent a bundle on books as Christmas presents. Of course, I ended up buying a bunch for me too, because I love books almost as much as I love dogs. (Okay, I don’t really love books as much as…

As some of you know, on January 9 I did a webinar for ASPCApro on adopting a dog into a multi-dog home. It was geared toward shelter and rescue professionals and volunteers, covering everything from how to do the first introduction to managing the household as time goes on, and what to do if it’s…

A blog reader asked a great question recently, in response to my comment that I couldn’t help myself and repeated “Stay, Stay, Stay” to Willie when in a dangerous situation at the side of a busy highway. We all know that repeated cues, like the ever popular “Sit, Sit, Sit” are not exactly “best practice”…

One of the most enjoyable parts of doing seminars around the world is talking to people from a variety of countries about their countries’ and culture’s attitude  and regulations regarding dogs. A group of us got to talking in Edinburgh about the dog-related laws of their own countries, and what a range of regulations we…

I got back recently from doing a seminar in Ann Arbor, Michigan for the Ann  Arbor Dog Training Club.  What a wonderful audience; we had a fantastic time together. At least, I did, so thanks to Tammy and everyone at the club  for having me. One of my favorite parts of this seminar (Both Ends…

VIDEOS ON LEASH TRAINING YOUR DOG Training Your Dog a Beginning “Heel”   How to Stop an Approaching Dog in an Emergency Most of us have unfortunately been in a situation where an uncontrolled, off-leash dog is headed straight for us. This method won’t work for every situation, but it gives you a chance to…

LOGS FROM “THE OTHER END OF THE LEASH” Old Dog, New Dog – The Book Everyone Needs July 2025 Holiday Books for Dog & Animal Lovers December 2024 More Great Books! September 2024 Book Reviews: Who’s a Good Dog? & Urban Sheepdogs February 2024 Excellent New Book on Companion Animals and Mental Health May 2023…

The seminar in Seattle was great fun, lots of good folks  and excellent questions from the audience. In the morning I talked about treatment for dog-dog reactivity, and I promised a summary of that on the blog. Here it is, with the obligatory caution that the morning itself wasn’t close to enough time to cover…

This post is all above love, because if those of us in the U.S. ever needed to focus on it now, it’s this week. I’m channeling love all I can this week. Love of my smart, soccer-focused, flannel-wearing, literal-minded, outdoor-loving, perfect-eyebrowed, kindest-man-ever husband. Love of my funny, irreverent and always-there-when-you-need them friends and family. Love…

Here’s the latest on Hope and Willie: Both Willie and Hope continued to be “spooky” to all number of things. This occurred both on and off the farm, and to all sorts of sights and sounds. Willie began high-arousal barking and lunging to other dogs when on leash, and off leash he growled and tooth…

On July 6th, 2020, Dr. Chris Zink, a sports medicine veterinary specialist and a person I greatly admire, wrote a piece titled “Stop Taking Your Dog for a Walk.” You can imagine that got my attention, since I had recently written a post about the importance of, uh, taking your dog for a walk. However,…

So many good questions. About how to socialize puppies. About whether to go to dog parks. So few good answers. But here’s a perspective that I hope is helpful: Risk management. It’s all about risk management. FOR PUPPIES what are the risks if you have a puppy and can’t follow the usual guidelines for socializing…

This is, in part, a repost of one of the very first blogs I wrote, from August of 2008. (Almost 11 years ago? Wow.) I am posting it again for several reasons–we have a lot of new readers; it’s always fun for me to see if I still agree with what I wrote in years…

Recently I called Maggie, and she didn’t show up. I was outside at the farm, working on clearing the muck-infused ice from a gate. The Border collies were out with me, behind the barn. No matter what I’m doing, I never let them out of sight; we live close to a road and even though…

Last week I listed my “non-resolutions,” not wanting to call them New Year’s Resolutions because so many fail within weeks. (U.S. News reports that 80% fail by early February.)     But I was on the Larry Meiller Show last week, (you can listen in the archive files) and found myself thinking about how the…

  Whew. Paws crossed, it looks like the worst is over. It’s not quite two weeks after surgery, and Willie, Jim and I are starting to imagine normal life again. It’ll be awhile still, but Willie’s incision finally has healed enough that we no longer feel a need to watch him, literally, every second. We…

I’m off in an hour to Virginia to do the For the Love of a Dog seminar on Saturday (about emotions in people and dogs) and a half day version of Both Ends of the Leash (focusing on how OUR behavior influences that of our dogs). Both seminars are fulfilling to do, I love doing…

I can’t resist repeating a post from 2012 on repeating ourselves. (I know, the irony!) It’s such an important and interesting issue, given how often our communication must confuse our dogs, and how tiring it must be for them to try to figure us out. From March, 2012: A blog reader asked a great question…

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…

Ray Coppinger loves to start controversies, and he did a great job of it at the SPARCS Conference in June. He began his talk by stating that dogs are have no consciousness and are merely “acting out motor patterns.” It’s always hard to know what Ray believes and what he is saying to generate a…

So. This is not the post I had intended. Apparently I am on the road to hell, the one “paved with good intentions.” In my body’s never-ending determination to make my life more F&^*&%^% difficult an adventure, I now have “de Quervain’s Tenosynovitis.” It’s basically two pissed off tendons squeezed inside of a vice (the…

Yup, Redstart Farm has a new member of the family. Maggie, a 15-month old female Border Collie from Idaho, has stolen the hearts of us all, Willie especially. He is gobsmacked. In love. Head over heels. Watching the two of them play has become one of my greatest joys in life. Those of you who…

  This is Bits. He is a hybrid wolfdog. Or maybe some coyote, no one knows. He is drop-dead gorgeous and is flat out terrified of strangers. He has been living with Jayne and Mike Belskey at the Grey Wolf Central Wisconsin Rescue  for two years now, having been rescued by them as a panicked,…

This post could be sub-titled “No, a tired dog is not always a good dog,” or alternatively, “Why We Choose Pasta with Cream Sauce Over Vegetable Soup on a Difficult Day.” Okay, maybe it’s just me that makes poor decisions about lunch when I’m exhausted, but this research suggests that I, along my dogs, are…

Last  Saturday my teenage ewe, Butterfinger, had her first lamb. I found her in the barn pen, licking off a slippery package of skin-covered bones covered with tiny whorls of wool and placental slime. Even though she was a first-time mom, she was a good one. She attended to her lamb just as she should,…

As many of you know I recently presented a seminar on animal assisted therapy in Naples Florida. (Yes, it’ll be out as a DVD later this winter. Happy Dance!) One of the motivations for doing the seminar was the number of clients I had who wanted me to help them prepare their dog for therapy…

If you’re in the area, I hope to see you on Thursday night at the Wisconsin Humane  Society for a fund raiser and talk, “Dogs Have Owners, but Cats Have Staff.” I don’t get asked to talk about feline behavior as much as I’d like to, so this is a special treat for me. I…

I was going to write a follow up blog about over marking, but I want to gather a bit more information before I do. I have to say that I’ve found the comments about over marking absolutely fascinating. I’m going to summarize them next week and will give you a report of what I find.…

I’m reading a book titled Becoming Animal by a “cultural ecologist and environmental philosopher” David  Abram.  My amazing sister (Wendy Barker, a break-your-heart brilliant poet and writer herself) sent it to me for Christmas and it has had a profound effect on me all week long. This is not a book for many people. As…

Less is More, She Says Again, and Again and …  July 2024 VIDEOS ABOUT COMMUNICATION BETWEEN PEOPLE AND DOGS Willie Learns Object Names Does your dog know the difference when you ask for a ball or a frisbee? Watch as Willie starts to put it all together. Read more here about how to teach your…

RELATED BLOGS FROM “THE OTHER END OF THE LEASH” Love and Dogs and Dogs and Us November 2023 Celebrating Labor Day (by Doing Little Labor) September 2023 Asking versus Telling Our Dogs August 2023 Could We Ever Read Dogs as Well as They Read Us? September 2022 How to Apologize to a Dog–Or Can We?…

VIDEOS ON DOG AGGRESSION AND REACTIVITY Example of “Watch” with Willie Willie loves a good game of tug as positive reinforcement for checking in with Trisha.   How to Stop an Approaching Dog in an Emergency Most of us have unfortunately been in a situation where an uncontrolled, off-leash dog is headed straight for us.…

Oh my. An alert reader sent me an blog from Psychology Today’s website. The essay is by Lee Charles Kelly, and argues that “dog training is no longer working that well” because we start “obedience” training too soon. The quote is actually attributed to Ian Dunbar, and Kelly uses that comment, and suggestions from psychologists…

Dogs play more together when being watched, a research result I’ve been fascinated by since it came out in 2021. Maggie, playing with Skip in the photo above, is the poster child for this phenomenon. She’ll stop, look at me, pointedly. Why? We all know I’m just guessing, but I get the distinct impression that…

It’s not often that an author emails you and asks your blessing to use what is essentially the title of one of your own books. But I got an email in January from Pilley Bianchi, the daughter of Dr. John W. Pilley, who not only made his dog Chaser famous, he changed our expectations of…

Cookies! Praise! Belly Rubs! Using positive reinforcement feels so easy, and is such a great way to have a healthy and happy relationship with your dog. The research is overwhelming that training with R+ builds trust, reduces stress, and is effective at teaching new and desired behaviors. And. Yet. There are plenty of pitfalls to…

First: Maggie is alive. Second: She almost wasn’t. All thanks to a cork. Which she ate. Which almost killed her. I’m telling the story in hopes it will educate, inform, and inspire. And don’t we all love a good dog story, as long the the dog doesn’t die? This one didn’t, but it was pretty…

[Caution: The following contains details of sheepdog trials and a video of one of Skip’s runs. If that bores you to tears, no worries, I won’t be offended. Just skip this; I’ll see you next time!) We’re just back from the Nippersink or Swim Sheepdog Trial outside of Lake Geneva, and in spite of blustery…

                                (Excuse me, there’s a growth on your head. Is it dangerous?) Recently I read an article in Bark Magazine titled “8 Things We Do That Really Confuse Our Dogs.” Written by Melissa Starling and Paul McGreevy, (and originally published in The Conversation), the authors lists several points to which I say Hear Hear! (And…

  If you’ve been home more often than not because of Covid Safe at Home, this is a good time to ensure that your dog doesn’t end up with Separation Anxiety (SA) when you go back to work. I’m concerned, as are many of my colleagues, that there is going to be a surge in…

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…

I spent last week on vacation, and so am reprinting an article I posted in April 13, 2012. It’s as relevant now as it was then, and I hope you enjoy it if you haven’t seen it. Here it is: Last  Saturday my teenage ewe, Butterfinger, had her first lamb. I found her in the…

What It’s Like to Be a Dog: And Other Adventures in Animal Neuroscience by Gregory Berns. In one of the early seminal papers on cognitive science, Thomas Nagel famously said that we could never really know what it is like to be a bat. (He actually said, “I want to know what it is like…

Someone just asked me what book or books they would recommend for someone who wants to learn more about dog behavior. This person’s interest is not superficial, she is serious about studying canine behavior. My friend wanted to buy her some books for Christmas to get her started. What would I suggest, she asked.  …

Perhaps you’ve seen Amy Cuddy’s viral TED talk about Presence, or read her inspiring book Presence: Bringing your Boldest Self to your Biggest Challenges? While I was re-reading the book this morning I was reminded of Ranger, a large dog I worked with years ago who was agoraphobic and refused to leave the house. The…

As many of you know, I’ve been working on a memoir for, uh, well, a long time. (Actually, it’s been over five years.) In early November I finally declared it finished, and sent it to my literary agent to be shopped around for a publisher. Lucky, lucky me, my editor for The Other End of…

As often happens, a study on human behavior got me wondering about how it might relate to our relationship with our dogs. The study in question asked if emotions could be conveyed through body odor. The researchers asked 12 men with pads in their arm pits to watch videos that designed to elicit fear, happiness…

If there is anything harder than euthanizing a beloved dog for serious behavioral problems, I don’t know what it is. And yet, sometimes, that is an option that dog owners have to consider. These were some of the hardest cases I worked with when I was seeing clients full time. I would drive home, sick…

Here’s my proudest moment in life (so far): It’s 1967, when the idea of women wearing pants was still a tad radical. But “pants suits” had just came out–dressy outfits that put trousers on your legs instead of a skirt, even for eveningwear. I worked as a salesgirl in a boutique in Scottsdale, AZ, and…

Can Dogs Have ADHD? Many years ago, when I was in my early years as an applied behaviorist, a dog came to me that I couldn’t quite figure out. It was an adolescent Old English sheepdog, let’s call him “Bear,” who was driving his humans crazy by biting on the leash and increasingly, their legs…