Citizen science--be there or be square. Researchers from the University of Guelph are conducting a survey about resource guarding in dogs. You can participate by going to this link and filling out the questionnaire. I hope you do--you'll see why as you read more... True confessions: I originally tried to take the survey in April, but didn't finish it. If you're on Facebook, you can see my post on April 24th about it. In that post I wrote: I took the survey myself and loved the videos that asked the viewer how they categorized what they saw, but got a bit frustrated at the end when the questions began to seem endless, and worse, impossible to answer correctly. (Ex: “How many people did you expose your new pup to at these four different ages: 4-8 weeks, 8 to 12 weeks?”). As if I could Read More
Archives for June 2015
Well, Stuff Happens.
That could actually be a great title for a content-rich blog, but I'm afraid the blog I was working on got trumped by 1) the blog site crashing for several hours, 2) Tootsie's recurrent and unexplained UTI and need for an X-ray, and 3) Nellie the kitty showing up limping and clearly very, very unwell. Thus, instead of a blog about the questions to ask when someone (like me) says "It Depends," I'm just going to go right to a report on the farm and the sheepdogs. But keep your eyes out for a blog on "It Depends," and one on a survey on resource guarding in the near future. MEANWHILE, back on the farm: Everyone but the sheep and the cats piled into the car yesterday to go to the Laughing Frog Sheepdog Trial in Kansasville, WI. Put on by hosts Tresa and Don Laferty, the trial is designed Read More
Take Your Dog to Work (or Not?) Revisited
I first posted this article in 2011, but it seems wise to put it out in the universe again. Taking a dog to work can be wonderful, or, not so much... Friday June 26th 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 thing to do; many of us take our dogs to work regularly. If you work in the dog world, it’s almost a gimmee, and one of the perks that I love about my job is that I can take Willie to work whenever I want. However, there’s nothing like being an Applied Animal Behaviorist to stimulate the waving of red flags when we read Read More
What Do “Dog Walkers” Need to Know?
Dog walkers do not show up on my radar very often, living as I do on a farm in the country. Jim and I are the dog walkers, and we like it that way. However, I am also aware how very lucky we are to have the time and the logistics to be able to take our dogs on long walks. Certainly I've worked long hours--I've seen many a twelve-hour day in my time--but I always had the luxury of working close enough to run home to let out dogs or to bring them to my office. There have been some days, especially when I taught at UW-Madison, that I had to ask a friend to take my dogs out (thank you Harriet!), but those days were relatively rare. Nor have I seen a lot of clients as an animal behaviorist who came to me because they wanted to be a dog walker and wanted to know how to get started. But when a Read More
Why Do Dogs Roll in Disgusting Stuff?
Why do dogs roll in disgusting stuff? Ah, but of course, it's not disgusting to them, right? But oh, the things with which dogs anoint themselves are usually awful to us humans, even with our lousy sense of smell. Here's what I wrote about it in The Other End of the Leash: "If you haven't smelled a dog who's rolled in fox feces, then your life is slightly better than mine, because it's a horrible smell, skunky and repulsive, and it clings to dog fur like a burr." But why DO dogs roll in strong smelling scents? And why choose the scents that they do? Why not roll in mint or lavender or, for that matter, old food cartons left on the sidewalk? First, let's look together at the guesses about why dogs roll in the first place. One suggestion is that they aren't trying to get the scent on Read More