What Dog Training Can Teach Us About Resolutions
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 basic principles of good dog training could increase our chances of keeping resolutions. Here's what I came up with: First, be realistic. Every professional animal trainer that I know has a clear sense of what they can accomplish with the time and resources that they have. Example: Should you spend time teaching a dog like a Great Pyrenees to go walking Read More
New Year, New Stage in Life, New “Let’s-Not-Call-Them-Resolutions”
Hi. Grandma Trisha here. I'm just back from visiting grand kids in Oregon and still full of the big, soft heart I felt every time I got called "Grandma". Cuz that's who I am now. I'm even growing out my grey silver hair, but then there's always that problem with different colored roots:Oh wait, that's grass that grew from seed under a pipe. That's why it's white at the base.Here's my hair:Seems to me that I can either fight my advancing age, or celebrate this new phase of life that Jim and I have entered, somewhere around our 70th birthday last fall. I'm choosing celebration.Here's the good news for those of us who just turned 70: We're still alive. As a biologist Read More
Happy Holidays!
Here's a blast from the past! I taught Luke and Pippy to jump over a sign with a sign in their mouths. My favorite Christmas card ever.They loved to play tug together, and one day I began to say "Good Dogs!" the brief moments when they ran together with a toy in their mouth, going in the same direction. Then I switched it to a pole. Other times I taught each one on their own to jump over something with toy in their mouth, then asked them to do it together.After making the signs, I took about 103 photographs of the dogs jumping (of course, back then, each one had to be printed out) and managed to get one good one out of the batch. I wonder if I can find some of the outtakes? I Read More