Do you take the time to write down what you are grateful for on a regular basis? I've been doing it for years, and I can attest that it's one of the most constructive things I've ever done. Far beyond a superficial exercise, it can help to repair a broken psyche, or, in some cases, a broken heart. One of the many things I'm grateful for is the ability to give back, and one of my favorite ways to do that is to help shelters and rescue groups find forever homes for homeless companion animals. That's why I was so grateful when we got a call from Kristi Jackson of the Peggy Adams Animal Rescue League in Florida. She made a large order for the booklet Way to Go!, because they found that after receiving the booklet fewer adopters called their hotline about behavior problems, and fewer people Read More
Archives for 2017
Wisconsin’s Prairies in Spring
I am so lucky to live in "fly over country". (To the hordes from the coasts: Please keep flying over and not stopping. We're just fine here, really.) I live in an area of southwestern Wisconsin called "The Driftless Area," so called because the last glaciers avoided us and left lots of beautiful hills, valleys and rocky outcrops. But it is also full of many gorgeous prairies. If you haven't had the luxury of enjoying a walk through a healthy prairie, then I hope you do sometime in your life. Many of our country's prairie have been destroyed, but remnants remain, and they are jewels. Here are some photos from a walk Jim and I took recently on a nearby prairie: The plant in the foreground is Prairie Smoke, the gold flowers in the back have my absolute favorite name for a flower: Hoary Read More
Off to Recharge My Batteries
I hope you are enjoying spring (or fall?) right now. Hopefully, when you read this, I'll be in the garden, the woods, the pasture or the kitchen. I'm taking the rest of May off to recharge my batteries. The book tour for The Education of Will was a time I will never forget, full of inspiration and passion and commitment and love. I am overwhelmed with gratitude about the reception of the book--thank you from the bottom of my heart to all of you who have responded to my memoir with such grace and support. I find, however, that I am spent. Taking my own advice (always the hardest advice to take, yes?), I will be recharging my batteries for the rest of May. I'll still read and post your comments, and cherish them as always, but please forgive me for only commenting on occasion until I Read More
HAI. The Window of Tolerance. And Life.
I'm sitting at La Guardia airport, surrounded by rows of passengers-to-be, their stolid baggage waiting by their sides like silent beasts of burden, their agile mobile phones hard at work. I'm on my way home from the Green Chimneys 2017 Conference on Human Animal Interactions and here's my challenge: What part of the conference do I write about? The amazing work being done at Green Chimneys, a pioneer in animal and nature-based therapy for children with special needs?? The informative and inspiring talk by Dr. Sandra McCune of the Waltham Foundation, about the human-animal bond and the growing field of Human-Animal Interactions (HAI). Or should I focus on one of HAI's rising stars, Dr. Maggie O'Haire from Purdue University's Center for the Human Animal Bond, her research on HAI impacts on Read More
Sorry to Say (Dogs and Guilt, Revisited)
There was quite the dust up on Twitter last week about a blog in Psychology Today by Nathan Lents, titled Dogs Apologize Better Than Some Humans. Skipping the observation that humans have a lot more to apologize for than dogs do, (clown horror movies come to mind), Lents addresses the "guilty look" of dogs and wolves. He argues that what people often interpret as a "guilty look" in dogs is the equivalent of an apology. He says: "A dog that bites too hard is punished by temporary shunning. They are removed from the social unit and ignored for a time. In order to be reintroduced, the offending wolf must approach with an apology bow and be re-admitted into the group." There's more. The quote that got him in the hottest of water was this: "In a sense, an apology is indeed an expression of Read More
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