Sniffing Out Scent Dog Training
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 some way cool, interesting people. Along with Meryl Peeps. The chicken. Bonus: I got to spend time in person with kick-ass writer and dog handler, Cat Warren, of the NYT best selling book, What The Dog Knows. (You've read it, right?) Cat and I have spent the last 5 + years working together on our respective first forays into fiction, and I consider her a dear, close friend. Read More
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Watch Skip’s Run or! Practice Your Observation Skills on Dogs and SHEEP!
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 Lab at UW-Madison, in which Professor Bayliss sat us down in front of a glass cage with rats in it and asked us to record our observations of their behavior. Afterward, our discussions went something like this: Prof: Describe what you saw, from second one to second ten. Us: One rat was asleep, the other walked to the side of the cage. Prof: But what was the posture of the sleeping rat? Read More
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Behavioral or Medical? Or both?
I recently had a great talk with Emily Priestley, the author of Urban Sheepdogs. I reviewed her book a few weeks ago, and although I noted some issues, I am a big fan of her attempt to help people understand that the behavior of their border collies or cattle dogs is not a mystery or a sign of dysfunction--rather a manifestation of what the dogs were bred for. These dogs need to be helped to adjust to an urban/suburban environment, not punished for it. I started out by asking her what she recommends to people who have dogs who are especially sound sensitive, as so many herding breeds tend to be. She answered by saying that she often asks that the dog be checked out by a veterinarian. That Read More
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