Search Results: Away To Me

We’ve been told (and I’ve repeated in my books ) that it takes about 21 to 28 days to learn a new habit. That doesn’t sound like too long a time, but the research also found that people tend to drop out a new behavior after about 2 weeks if they don’t go out of…

I would be excited about lessons tomorrow with the GOAT sheepdog trainer/handler  Scott Glen, but the fact is it’s so hot and humid I know that Skip will only be able to work for very short periods of time. Like just a few minutes. I also just a pulled him from a new trial I…

I thought it would be good to start with just plain gorgeousness from our trip last week to Washington DC for the 80th birthday of a dear friend. These next two photos are from the other-wordly gardens at Hillwood Estate and Gardens. Walking through the gardens felt like falling into some Alice-in-Wonderland-like exuberance of color…

You know how they say “All’s well that ends well?” But, what if it’s the opposite? We all know that what happens last has a disproportionate amount of impact, and I regret to say that our vacation in Arizona, had, uh, some low points. But after I whine, I’ll get to remind myself of the…

  January is “Divorce Month.” Who knew. I got divorced from my two practice husbands in other months, but it does make sense that January, the month of darkness, sugar withdrawal, and dashed expectations of holiday cheer, would be a prime candidate for the dissolution of marriages. When I was seeing clients, some of my…

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…

VIDEOS ABOUT A DOG’S FEAR OF PEOPLE OR OTHER DOGS Counter Conditioning for Reactivity to People   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…

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.…

As you probably know, we don’t offer a lot of books by other authors on our website, but we’ve just put up Dr. Nancy Kay’s book, Speaking for Spot: Be the Advocate Your Dog Needs to Live a Happy, Healthy, Longer Life. There’s just so much good about this book, and it is such an…

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…

Like many people, I’m classically conditioned to associate “New Year’s Resolutions” with broad, generic and doomed-to-fail pronouncements, like “I’ll be healthier!”  “I’ll lose 20 pounds!”  “I’ll be an all around better person!” “I’ll kind and generous to everyone I meet!” I made my share of impossible resolutions in decades past, and like most of them,…

Oh boy oh boy. We’ve just finalized arrangements to hold a seminar in Madison Wisconsin on October 29-30, 2011. Inspired by the seminar I did in New Zealand, I’m going to give a completely updated version of  Advanced  Canine Behavior on Saturday. The day will include state of the art research on cognition, play and…

We need a little extra comfort, sometimes, don’t we? I find myself in that situation now, and am especially grateful not just for Jim, but also for Maggie and Skip. They are both super cuddly dogs, and moment by moment, I take comfort from the touch of their fur, the rhythm of their beating hearts.…

Whoopee! Although big time publishing moves at the speed of a cautious sloth, I can finally announce that my mystery novel has a publisher! I am over the moon that Kensington Books Publishing, New York, New York, has taken my book. It feels like they will be a perfect fit. Kensington is an “indie,” or…

Recently I was on Zazie Todd’s brilliant Bark! Fest podcast series, talking about The Education of Will, and trauma in people and dogs. A participant asked an important question, based on having been seriously traumatized herself after her dog was attacked by another: How do you recover from that kind of trauma? It can be…

I can’t resist writing a post about the birds of New Zealand. No surprise to readers, I was fascinated by the animals of NZ, many of which have been brought in for a variety of reasons. As many of you know, NZ has no native mammals except two species of bats, and has suffered greatly…

Can we all just retire from everything else and read dog/animal-related books for the next few weeks? No? Me either. But still, so many new great books out there! Here are some I am excited about, in no particular order: Bark! The Science of Helping Your Anxious, Fearful, or  Reactive Dog, by Zazie Todd is…

A few weeks ago Skip and I were in a trial when it was in the high 80’s and humid. Very little breeze. In short, awful. Of course, I was worried about Skip, given his bad heart, and wouldn’t have run him if the course hadn’t been a short one. I got him in the…

I wrote this before I left for New Zealand, and I hope I can get on line to read the comments about this video. Many of you have undoubtedly seen the video of the now famous Snowball dancing to music on Youtube. Here’s another one, which had me practically wetting my pants I laughed so…

Here’s a video I’m going to show in New Zealand of Willie, Hope and friend Mico, from this summer. I’m not going to say much about it, because I am curious what words you would use to describe what you are seeing. Watch it a couple of times, and then if you are so inspired,…

Ever since I got Skip, three and a half years ago, he has turned preferentially toward me to his left, even if to the right is shorter. If I call him when I am at six o’clock, and he is facing three, he turns to his left and runs 3/4 of the way around the…

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 is Labor Day as I write this, a holiday that deserves a lot of attention. There is controversy about exactly who got it started, but forces gathered in 1882 to pay tribute to laborers and workers who rarely get attention and acknowledgement. It feels especially important now, given the Writer’s Guild of America strike…

I’m so curious what you think of what’s happening in this video. As you can see, it’s label suggests that the dam is “teaching her puppies to be calm.”        (Video from the YouTube channel of Sent from Heaven) What I’m especially interested in is the reaction I got when I posted this on Facebook…

Great comments about who goes when and where, keep it up. I love hearing from you. It is truly amazing how little we know about dog behavior, isn’t it? But here’s some more of Anneke’s results, this time from good-ole-fashioned, ethological studies observing animals in their natural environment–in this case, the dog park. Dr. Lisberg…

  Finishing a first draft of any book is a big deal, even though every experienced author knows there is tons and tons of work to do. That is not an understatement. I’d say it’ll be one and a half to two years before this sees the light of day. But, still. I started playing…

  My first dog training class, in 1968, involved my adolescent Saint Bernard and an ex-marine instructor who hung a Basenji off a choke chain for not sitting when told. Me and my dog walked out. Years later, in the 80’s, I became interested in dog training and took a friend’s dog to classes for…

Today is all photos from our trip to Arizona. We just got back, and it was good to be in my home state for a visit. I admit to not wanting to live in the desert any more (too many thorns, too hot in summer, too little green), but there’s nothing like going back to…

Here’s a brief post from one of the many fascinating talks at IFAAB… brief because I’m afraid I came home with a killer influenza, couldn’t even stand up on Tuesday, much less sit up.  So boring to be sick, seems like I’ve been sick that too much this winter. Enough already. One of the best…

Well, I was going to write about some of the great information in Ed Young’s best-selling book, An Immense World, and then, life happened. As it does, when we have other plans. My day started at 5:30 AM (“did you know your website is down?”) and turned into (“your website got hacked”), and went down…

I  just received a book from veterinarian Nancy Kay, titled Speaking for Spot: Be the Advocate Your Dog Needs to Live a Happy, Healthy, Longer Life.  I haven’t read it yet, but it looks very  interesting. Anyone read it? I find the whole issue of medical advocacy fascinating and compelling and terrifying when I’m in…

Due to a glorious visit from five family members, straight out of a commercial for _______ (Fill in the blank–Allergy medicine? Arthritis medicine?), in which old people are still able to keep up with and enjoy the youngsters, I’m behind on everything else. “Everything else” being far less important than family, right? (Note: Using the…

Karen London and I are planning on writing a booklet for people who adopt dogs from shelters or rescue groups. We’re both aware that often it can be intimidating to sit in your living room with a new family member, whose background you may not even know. Over the many years that we’ve worked with…

I’d love to have a conversation about avoiding over heating in dogs. We all know that it can be a life or death issue for all dogs, but the fact is that my Skip overheats easily. Very, very easily. It may be that his bad heart is the only factor, or perhaps there are others,…

I  know, I know, I have books piled by my bed glaring at me waiting to be read. But here’s the good news: These two new books on Treat Search Tracking and Trick Training are the kind of books you can read a little or a lot, and take out what you want. I have…

Nutrionist Linda Case’s new book, Feeding Smart with the Science Dog, is great. Truly great. I wrote several other introductory sentences, deleted them all, and finally settled on the simplest and most accurate one. If you’re anything like me, and I know many of you are, and you want to feed your dog as well…

We were going to go. Then we weren’t. We’d had plans for six months to go to Hawaii with friends. We all cancelled a few weeks ago, after Omicron raised its ugly head. Every morning for a week after we cancelled I woke up heartsick. I’ve been lucky in my travels–lucky beyond anything I could…

My usual response to someone saying “My dog is so smart!” is: “I’m so sorry, my sympathies.” Smart can be great, but it also means that your dog has learned to steal dirty laundry to get your attention, or that you don’t really mean it when you say “Leave it,” or that the kitchen cabinet…

January has been designated “National Train Your Dog Month” by the Association of Professional Dog Trainers (APDT), and hey, why not? (Check out their free videos, by the way, good for them.) Those of us in the north of the northern hemisphere are getting cabin fever anyway, so why not think of a few things…

I mentioned earlier that I gave a talk at the University of Wisconsin last Saturday during their celebration of Darwin Day (it was his 200th birthday on 2/12, the same day as Lincoln’s 200th birthday). My talk centered on one of his less well-known books, The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals.  This…

I know–it’s late to be talking about gifts for pets and pet lovers the week before Christmas. But the adventure of life never ceases to remind us that plans are just that. Plans. Which have to be changed when life interrupts our carefully-constructed calendars. I love the holidays, now that I’ve decided to focus on…

In my last post I mentioned that Skip was being given couch privileges, but he didn’t feel quite comfortable up there when first allowed. Here’s the photo I took several weeks ago: It’s pretty clear who was the most comfortable. This photograph, along with a post on my Facebook page, led to some comments about…

It was hard not to write to all of you last week, seriously. But, I made some real progress on the novel and that feels good. I didn’t write thousands of new words, but I got some good work done on the structure and plot. (Not that plot is important in a mystery . .…

Well, this is weird. It’s Monday morning, and I’m not in my usual place, writing my blog on my laptop in the dining room, Skip curled up against the door, Maggie out of sight in the living room sprawled on the couch. No, I’m writing to you on the huge iMac in my study, the…

Got late today, need to get to campus to lecture (on ethology of agricultural animals, love this topic; showing segments from an amazing video by Ginger Kathrens, Cloud: Wild Stallion of the Rockies–four years of phenomenal cinematography of a pale, white stallion born in the American Rockies through his maturity into a herd stallion).  So…

Dr. Karen London, in a reprinted article in Bark Magazine, raised some interesting questions about the meaning of different patterns of raised hackles, or piloerection, in dogs. First off, note that many people associate piloerection with aggression, well illustrated in my search for photos of dogs with raised hackles in a commercial photo site: All…

  A recent study in Current Biology by Emily Bray, et. al., Early-emerging and highly heritable sensitivity to human communication in dogs, caught my eye recently, because it brings up a variety of interesting issues to those of us interested in human-dog communication. One of those is the issue of whether dogs inherently understand a…

What would we do without our veterinarians and vet techs?? Not to mention everyone else who helps us keep our companion animals as healthy as we can. This week I’m celebrating Veterinary Appreciation Day and I hope you’ll join me. I’ll admit to being a bit jaded at all the “special days” we hear about…

As always, Memorial Day feels hard to wrap my head around, or maybe it’s my heart. It’s a day of the beginning of summer and BBQs and, this year especially, celebrations of finally being able to be with friends and family. And it’s a day of mourning and respect and gratitude for those who have…