Search Results: Away To Me

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…

I’m curious about your experience with dogs who are dog-dog aggressive and what I’ll call “intensive sniffers.” Ever since I heard Sue Sternberg say that dogs who sniff obsessively in her office are often/usually/always?) dog-dog aggressive, I have paid more attention to “intensive sniffing behavior” (I don’t know what else to call it–but hey, I…

A million years ago, my first Border Collie Drift lept up and nipped a man’s nose at the Wisconsin State Fair. Even though the man was clearly not injured, with virtually not even a red spot on his nose, I was shook up and appalled. He was furious. “Your dog attacked me!” Well, he did.…

So I’m working Will, my young Border Collie, last night, asking him to push the lambs into a corner so that I could catch and treat a sick one. (Lambs get diarrhea just like people and dogs do, I suspect it feels just as bad for them as it does for the rest of us.…

So Katie Martz, Client Services Coordinator at McC Publishing, came into my office this afternoon and said: “You’re going to hate me for asking, but would you mention the sale on your blog?” She knows that 1) I’d rather not mention business-related things on my blog and 2) that people really do appreciate hearing about…

One of your fellow blog readers alerted us to a study recently published in Behavioral Processes titled “Disambiguating the “guilty look” by Alexandra Horowitz. It is a creative and well-designed study that supports what trainers, ethologists and behaviorists have been saying for years: “No, your dog isn’t expressing guilt when he cowers at the door…

Or, alternative title: Adventures in the Willie Wonka Fear Factory. If you’re cocking your head in confusion, this is about Willie’s recent (and relatively new) fear of men. To review briefly: As a puppy he was pathologically afraid of other dogs, exceptionally sound sensitive and, in some contexts, quick to anger. But he adored people,…

“Puppy nerd” asked a great question in his or her comment: Given how visual dogs are, should one start an exercise with visual signals to help the dog get it right, and then switch to acoustic ones, or avoid visual signals altogether if you want your dog to pay attention to your voice?  Well, this…

As you know if you’ve been following the blog, 1/2 the folks who went to Kenya continued on to Botswana. We all knew that seeing Wild Dogs wasn’t a guarantee, but we had high hopes because we were going where and when our chances were highest. (And no, in response to one comment, there are…

Yesterday something happened with Willie that reminded me of something most of us already know. . .  the fact that our dogs are continually trying, often desperately, to communicate with us. They can’t use words, they don’t write letters and, thank god, they can’t twitter. But they live in constant contact with members of another…

WRITTEN MID-JULY, POSTED WHILE I’M IN AFRICA: I recently spent three evenings with Jim’s son, daughter-in-law and granddaughter Taylor, and so the issue of kids and dogs is near and dear to me right now. I also, in that serendipitous way of the world, just received a question about how to find help for a…

Friday June 24th has been designated “Take Your Dog to Work Day” by Pet Sitters International. Begun in 1999 with a goal of encouraging adoptions, Pet Sitters Int’l suggests that we all take our dogs to work to emphasize the human/animal bond, and indirectly encourage people to adopt homeless dogs. This could be a great…

Well, we must be making progress. After reading every single one of your comments, recording them by sex, familiarity and social status (maybe, sort of, more on that later) and comparing it to Dr. Anneke Lisberg’s research on urine marking, I now am completely flummoxed about what it all might mean. But you know how…

There is a new book that just hit the book shelves, John Bradshaw’s Dog Sense. I just started reading it and think it is a book with a lot of value. Here’s a summary from the back of the book of some of its messages: “Don’t be an Alpha,” “Dogs can feel love but not…

I just got back from UW getting Willie measured for his Hobbles, designed to restrict his shoulder movement after his surgery for his ripped up bicepital tendon. I’m not positive that it looks exactly like this, but the photos on this link from DogLeggs are a close replicate. We also worked through some pre-surgical PT,…

Here’s support for those of us who feed veggies to our dogs from a study in JAVMA (Vol 227, No. 1, July 1, 2006). My great Chinese medicine DVM vet, Dr. Jody Bearman, looked it up for me after we talked about diet and health the last time she came out to treat Will and…

Work on the podcast is progressing. I’m waiting to hear the first version of the pilot that we recorded last week, and am on pins and needles about it. How will it sound? Are my answers (to some of your GREAT questions!) helpful? Interesting? How about the format? By the way, we decided to go…

See the dog, not the story. This is a quote from one of your colleagues, a blog reader who sent this in as a comment about dogs in rescue. (And who I should credit, but because I’m in a time crisis, I can’t right now, but THANKS! and I will find your name when I…

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…

Happiness can be elusive. I first added a variety of phrases starting with “especially when . . . ,” but decided that those four words were enough. No one can be happy all the time, but who doesn’t want to be happy at least part of every day? Surely the same is true of our…

A few weeks ago Maggie, aka Princess Margaret, came back after a play session with a tiny limp. Well, damn, I thought, I hope this isn’t serious. Her limp disappeared the next day, and play sessions with Skip and her favorite toy were back on the agenda after one more day of “just to be…

I love giving dogs choices, including when it’s related things I want/need them to do. Here’s an example of the “Premack Principle,” which says that “more probable behaviors act to reinforce less probable behaviors.” Most probable because that’s what the dog/cat/child/iguana wants to do, so it’s the perfect reinforcement, right? My version is a variant–the…

The commercial aspects of the holidays can be off-putting, but I still love the focus on family and friends. And gifting too — when it’s a thoughtful expression of love. That’s why there are at least 15 books sitting close by my desk, either already wrapped or awaiting decoration, to be sent to dear family…

Well, you can’t say it’s been dull. First, to get this out of the way, because I’ve never learned to be comfortable with this kind of thing: There’s a big “Everything on Sale!” bonanza going on at patriciamcconnell.com. I’m posting this earlier than usual because the sale is over at midnight (eastern) on Monday. I…

I’ve been to a lot of dog-related seminars, and, at every one, the female/male ratio is something like 90/10. Or 95/5. I thought it would be different at the Im-PECK-able seminar put on by K9 Behavior Consortium, thinking of all the guys I’ve run into over the years with law enforcement dogs, especially drug and…

I was working on a post this morning (It begins: “I may be an idiot for bringing this up, but I can’t help myself . . .”), and then a dental adventure took up too much time and energy, so I’ll post it next week. Promise. So, it’s all about spring and the farm today.…

Well, how fun was that? Last weekend I was at the “Im-PECK-able Training Seminar” put on by Craig Schultz and Sally Dickinson for the K9 Behavior Consortium in Manassas, VA. I went primarily to learn more about sniffer dogs for my next mystery novel (wheeeee!), but reveled in spending time with some great dogs, and…

Skip ran in our first trial last weekend, and while watching the video to figure out how the heck he got a shed (the only really good one of the trial), I realized what a great opportunity it was to play the “Sharpen Our Observation Skills” game. I’ll never forget my first day of Ethology…

                  I don’t pretend to be able to keep up with all the dog/animal behavior books being published right now, but two books got my attention this week that I thought you might find interesting. In some ways, they couldn’t be much different from each other. Who’s…

  Continuing my ability to relate just about everything in the world to dog training, I offer you some thoughts about how good editing is like good dog training.  For example, here is a typical editing progression, starting with:              “I really think that dog is too hot to keep working.” Eeeps, delete the “really”:…

While feeling a bit reflective, and thinking about what to write today, I went into the archives to see what I’d written this month ten years ago. I ran into this post, which I’d forgotten about, and decided it deserved to come out of moth balls, like some Christmas tree decorations stashed in the back…

One of my favorite games with Willie is to put him on sit/stay and then hide one of his toys in another room. I release him and tell him to go find his toy. We both think it’s a hoot and get all waggy from the shoulders back together. We’ve played it on and off…

  This post is inspired by Katha Miller-Winder’s new book: Practicing Partnership: A therapy dog and his person. My favorite part of the book (definitely recommended for anyone with, or about to have, a therapy dog), is on page 7 and 8: “If I’m being a true partner for my dog, I’ve given the dog…

Thanks for the discussion about the use of Body Blocks for teaching Stay, and to re-iterate a comment I made, they work equally well with dogs of all breeds and sizes (but you have to be a bit quicker with some breeds and with small dogs).  If your dog is getting around you to the…

Working Willie on sheep in preparation for tomorrow’s trial reminded me of the first time I made a connection between the way Border Collies herd sheep and dog training in general. As you all know,  BCs control sheep by what I call “space management.” They don’t bark, rarely bite, but “take the space” away from…

So, last year Jim built me some beautiful raised beds so that I could grow veggies without fighting the jungle of weeds that encroach all my gardens like an advancing army. The beds are so high that I don’t have to bend over to tend them—Jim actually had to make one shorter when I realized…

Recently I had the honor of writing the forward for an important and timely book: The Role of Companion Animals in the Treatment of Mental Disorders. Published by the American Psychiatric Association, this book is a testament to the hard work of mental health researchers and practitioners who are doing their best to find when,…

  “They SAID he was house trained!” “She said he loved EVERYBODY!” “He was FINE at my house! What did the new owners do to him?” Every trainer and behaviorist who does consults hears these phrases on a regular basis. About the “house trained” spaniel who pees on the rug, the “everybody loving” Border collie…

Last week I savored your responses to my Giving Thanks post. No matter how big or how small, it’s good for us, and those around us, to let gratitude soothe our souls. Today, I’m focusing on giving thanks through the “Giving” part. It’s Giving Tuesday, and although, like me, you mighty be feeling a tad…

Location. Location. Location. Or, perhaps, environment, environment, environment. That’s one of the keys to making your cat(s) truly happy, as author Zazie Todd, PhD, told me in an interview we did last week about her excellent new book Purr: The Science of Making Your Cat Happy. In a way, it’s simple: Understand cats, and act…

This week’s post is a repeat from four years ago. I thought of it recently when trying to take a photo of a friend’s dog, who kept turning his head away from the camera lens. I love this example of how understanding ethology helps us understand the behavior of other animals. (Full disclosure: It also…

Read this book. Get it from the library, buy it, or borrow it, but do what you can to read it. I know . . . you might have a pile of books beside your bed (guilty) and bookcases stuffed beyond capacity (guilty), and not want to hear about yet ANOTHER book to read (depends…

You might have noticed that there have been no photographs of cats in the last several months. That’s because there are no cats living here now, but I couldn’t write about it until it wasn’t so raw. (See many of Brené Brown’s works for excellent discussions of when, and when not, to go public with…

I just finished reading a review copy of Karen Pryor’s new book, Reaching the  Animal Mind (Scribner). I don’t know when it’s coming out, I’ll let you know as soon as I hear (but you can pre-order it on Amazon now). It’s an inspiring book, especially for those that haven’t yet used clicker training on…

  The following is an update from posts I’ve written in the past, introducing Dog Bite Prevention Week. Here’s what I’d love you to do this week–comment about “Dog bites I have known,” (sigh), or “How I prevented a bite about to happen.” So, so, SO many bites could be prevented if dog owners, dog…

  During the pandemic, my vet clinic didn’t allow owners inside. We handed our dogs off to a Vet Tech, and stood outside waiting in the snow, or the rain, or the sun, and paced around the parking lot. We sat in the car and checked our phones. One vet told me some clients drove…

I love a lot about this time of year, from holiday lights to the sweetness of friends and family. Not to mention the cookies. And the cake. Just saying. Something I’ve done for decades this time of year is to reflect on the past year and envision what I’d like the next year to include.…

I don’t know about you, but the state of the world is such right now that I need lots of healthy distractions. (What, is the vodka, triple sec, pomegranate, lime juice, club soda drink I sort of invented not healthy?) I am indeed doing what I can to be a good, active citizen, but one…

  Dr. Hal Herzog, a PhD psychologist specializing in behavior and human/animal relationships (see Some We Love, Some We Hate, Some We Eat), recently wrote an article for Psychology Today that got my attention. Before publication, he talked to me about it briefly, with the following question: Did I find that anxious owners tended to…

“We pooped!” This was enthusiastically said by a friend, eyes shining and face flushed with victory, as if she had just won the National Finals. Turns out her dog is the kind who has trouble doing his business when distracted by the excitement of a sheepdog trial and had finally produced. If you’re reading this…