If you are a serious student of domestic dog behavior, you need this book. Its full title is The Domestic Dog: Its Evolution, Behavior and Interactions with People (2nd edition). It's not inexpensive, but well worth it. ($44.69 on Amazon, but don't hesitate to contact your local Indie store to see what they'd charge you.) This is not a book I can read from beginning to end, because it's a compilation of chapters, 20 in all, whose subjects range from the archaeological evidence of the dog's origins to social cognition and the emotions underlying dog behavior. It is chock full of important information (the social structure of free-ranging dogs depends on resource dispersion), just plain interesting information (wolf puppies begin exploring the environment at two weeks of age, dogs not until Read More
Archives for 2017
How to Handle Reactive Dogs
I'm just back from the first phase of book tour, and so much of what came up on the dog-lover side related to "reactive" dogs. As I talk about in The Education of Will, dogs can be psychologically traumatized too, and one of the symptoms of that is "hyper-reactivity." Just as a veteran soldier with PTSD can react to a loud noise by throwing herself to the ground, dogs with their alarm systems fixed on HIGH are usually quick to startle to an abrupt noise, or panic when an unfamiliar dogs appear. However, dogs can be "reactive" when out walking for a variety of reasons, including a conditioned response to feeling frustrated at not being able to greet another dog if on leash, or simple fear of a dog they've never met. "Traditional" responses have been to correct dogs for lunging, snarling Read More
A Request to the Village re the Education of Will
Months ago, when in the first stages of planning publicity for my new book, I asked my editor why book tours were always so brutal. And they are--by now I'll have given 9 talks in less than two weeks, and visited 8 cities. On some days, I got up at 4 A, to make a 6 AM flight, so I could speak that same day, assuming the weather didn't destroy all my plans. The good news is that not only did I have no weather problems, but was, and am, overwhelmed by the kindness and generosity of my hosts, and the people who came up after my talks. I spoke to so many people who made me glad I'd written and published the book, and can't find the words to thank everyone enough who said such kind things. A special treat was meeting folks who read the blog on a regular basis, and some who comment regularly Read More
Sleep Disturbance Case – Urgent
I'm busy on book tour, but was asked about this case at the Ohio Vet Conference late last week. You can read the description below, but the bottom line is this sweet, dear hound mix, Kasey, was rescued from a research lab but needs rescuing again. We didn't have much time to talk about the case at the conference, but I was so touched by the story I suggested that we put it out to the village. The bottom line is that Kasey is predictably fearful of many things, but the urgent problem is an inability to sleep through the night, and barking when she wakes up. This is making it extremely difficult to find a forever home for her, people being strangely attracted to being able to sleep more than a few hours a night. (I went through a period of Willie waking up every hour, or even less, for a Read More
Dogs and Psychological Trauma
In 2006, Willie who came to us as an eight-week old puppy who behaved as if he'd served three tours in Afghanistan, and came back with the canine version of PTSD. The title of The Education of Will is in part based on his name. In the book I talk about how all mammals can be psychologically traumatized, and that they share many of the same needs as human survivors for a sense of safety and autonomy. One of my motivations for writing the book was to make it clear to the general public that dogs can experience trauma, and that the last thing they need is force or coercion to "behave." Given that I'm traveling around the the country talking about this issue through the very personal lens of Willie and myself, it seemed appropriate to repost this article that I wrote in September of Read More
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