It's Memorial Day. It never feels like a holiday to me; rather, it feels like a day to reflect and honor people who are far braver than most of us. I always feel a bit sad today, aware of all the loss and suffering our species can create. But there is reason to celebrate too. In 2012 I wrote a post about the Canine Members of the Armed Forces Act, which would stop military dogs being classified as "equipment" and honor them as "members" in military service, as is only fitting given how much they do for us. And hold the phone, it finally passed in 2016. There's more good news: A memorial to the dogs sent to Vietnam was recently erected in Wisconsin. As you no doubt know, this is not a happy story—almost all of the dogs were abandoned when the US left. Thank heaven things have Read More
Archives for May 2018
Cake Wins
This is what I did today instead of write a blog. I'm so sorry. Jim is not. It's from the New York Times Magazine, the Double-Layer Chocolate Chocolate Birthday Cake. You'll use every pot and pan in your kitchen twice, it contains enough butter and sugar to fuel the citizens of a small state, my kitchen was a disaster zone when I was done, and yup, it was just what I needed today. Any guilty pleasures for you recently? Read More
Dog Training Can Make You a Better Writer (and Vice Versa)
Last week I enjoyed speaking at the Lakefly Writer's Conference in Oshkosh, WI. After accepting the invitation, I pondered for awhile about a topic, and somewhere, out of the recesses of my mind, came the question of what my two professional loves have in common. Here's a short summary of some of the ways that I think training and writing can inform each other: COMMITMENT. Raise your hand if you have said you absolutely are going to finish teaching your dog not to ________ (fill in the blank). Or to _______? We all have a list of things we want to do, should do, promise to do "when we have time," right? Writing is famous for the same phenomenon. "Someday I'm going to start that novel I've been thinking about" is such a frequently uttered phrase that Read More
One’s Nose is Never So Happy (Can Scents Calm Dogs?)
"One's Nose is Never So Happy..." has nothing to do with dogs, except for the nose part. Here's the full quote: "It has been observed that one's nose is never so happy as when it is thrust into the affairs of another, from which some physiologists have drawn the inference that the nose is devoid of the sense of smell." – Ambrose Bierce Apologies for such a ridiculous diversion, but reading it made me spit out my tea while I was looking for interesting quotes about the sense of smell, so I opened with it. The sense of smell is indeed what this post is about, and whether some scents can act to calm or relax dogs who are in stressful situations. The bottom line is yes, according to a study done by Jonathon Binks et. al. (2018, The behavioural effects of olfactory stimulation on dogs at Read More