I miss Willie. Last week I sat by his grave and cried so hard I couldn't breathe. There are a lot of reasons that I miss him, but the biggest one is that he was one of the happiest dogs I've ever known. Here's what I wrote about dogs and happiness in For the Love of a Dog, Chapter 7, page 217: It’d been a hard day. Too many difficult cases with heart-broken owners and dangerous dogs. Too many computer glitches and pens that ran out of ink. We all have our own versions of it, but everyone knows what it feels like to have a tough day. I remember walking into the farmhouse exhausted and depressed, burdened by the day behind me, tired from thinking about the chores that lay ahead. There were dogs to feed and walk, sheep to grain and water, baby lambs who needed bottle feeding and a fence Read More
Archives for July 2019
Don’t Let the Chain Fool You
Remember the song Chain of Fools? If you're too young, here's a link to Aretha Franklin singing it. (Spoiler Alert #1: Best song ever. Spoiler Alert #2: Ear worm danger.) The word "chain" and "fool" can be linked in another way, in this case, when you're training your dog. I'm of course, talking about "behavior chains" in which your dog learns pretty much the opposite of what you wanted. The examples are endless; here's one: Your dog begins barking at something out the window, you call him to come to you, and reinforce him for coming (and thus not barking). He goes back to the window and continues barking, so you call him back to you, and reinforce him stopping barking and coming to you. All good right? You stopped your dog from barking, and reinforced the behavior. Except pretty soon Read More
Save the Date(s)!
Get out your calendars! There are three special dates I want to highlight today, including one coming right up that is free, fun and educational. The Modern Dog: In & Out of the Shelter will be presented on Saturday, July 27th, at the University of Illinois Chicago. It's the very special "Public Day" of the Animal Behavior Society's 2019 conference, which is free and open to everyone. No onerous conference fees. No registration necessary. It is from 9 to 1, and offers CEUs for CPDT, IAABC & KPA. The program looks chock full of talks that would interest any dog lover. I can't be there, but I was there last year and it was awesome. It's only 9 to 1, it's free and it'll be amazing. No need to register either, just show up and soak up some knowledge and inspiration. (Apologies Read More
It’s All About the Outline: Dogs, Statues, and Dangerous Hats
A good friend of mine showed me a hysterical collection of dogs trying to get statues to play ball with them (thank you Adam!). Here's one of them: https://youtu.be/VEiX_6s-sJc?t=9 You don't have to work hard to find examples of dogs reacting to statues of people as if they were live humans. Here's another one of my favorites: </ifram Just google videos of dogs greeting statues for endless more entertainment. I find it all delightfully amusing, but there's an important lesson in it: Dogs pay attention to outlines, to silhouettes, as much as to any other visual cue. That's why many dogs bark at people with hats on, or big bulky back packs--I've always thought in a dog's mind it's like seeing characters in a sci-fi movie who are mostly human, but not. Read More
Bigger Dogs, “Smarter Dogs”? Hmmmmmmm. . .
Full disclosure: I used to be a breedist. My family didn't believe that little dogs were really dogs at all. "Rug rats" they called them. And then, in my second or third week of seeing clients in 1988, a Toy Poodle trotted into my office and proved to me how wrong my family had been. This little dog was as smart as any dog I'd ever met, and won my heart and admiration within five minutes. He was a good teacher too, reminding me for the rest of my life that in terms of intelligence and trainability, size doesn't matter. I thought of that poodle when I read a recent study that asked whether larger dogs have a higher level of cognitive ability than smaller dogs. The study, done by Daniel Horschler et. al. at the Arizona Canine Cognition Center, found that larger dogs performed better in Read More