March 11, 2024
Last week a dear friend brought her teenage Bernedoodle, Leo, over to meet Skip and Maggie. Leo was like Sheldon at a Comic Con Convention (can you tell I've been watching Big Bang Theory?)--all enthusiasm and no social finesse. This is Maggie after he tried to mount her head. (Please supply caption.) In spite of his enthusiasm, Leo is a dear, sweet dog, but his owner asked for some advice about teaching him to come when called off their home territory when he is highly distracted. We did a little work, and he'll be over again soon, but he got me thinking about how recall training isn't as simple as it often feels. I was about to write a new post on the topic, and then remembered I've Read More
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Book Reviews: Who’s a Good Dog? & Urban Sheepdogs
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 a Good Dog? And How to Be A Better Human, by Jessica Pierce, is a beautifully-produced book published by The University of Chicago Press, has perhaps the greatest title and cover of any dog-related book I've seen in a long time, and has a nine-page index. Urban Sheepdog: Understanding Your Herding Breed, by Emily Priestley, is published by . . . ? (All Read More
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Winter Get Away in Jamaica
We're just back from a week in Jamaica. Good to go, good to be home. Usually winter trips around here are motivated by a desire to escape the cold. Not this time, I think it was in the 50's when we left. We basically had about two weeks of real winter--very cold, lots of snow--but before and after it's been like living in three month-long November, a month known for gray skies and lots of mud. Yuck. Because of that, it was still wonderful to get away, mostly to glory in bright colors-Turquoise! Orange! Green!, and to escape the relentless To Do list that exists for all of us. Mine is especially, uh, challenging now. Mix my Epstein Barr/Chronic Fatigue Syndrome with ADHD, and interesting Read More
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