Ah summer! Jim and I got to take a road trip out east to see friends and family. It was beyond wonderful to see them all. (FYI, we were super covid cautious, and felt lucky to get it squeezed in just before things started getting critical again.) We got to see dear friends, Meg Boscov and Randy Brown after waaaaay too long. Here they are with Jim, at an astounding public garden outside of Philadelphia, Chanticleer. It's been called "the most romantic, imaginative, and exciting public garden in America" (so says their website), and I can see why. I could spend days there. If you love gardens and are anywhere near the area, it's a must. (Pennsylvania readers--been there?) Meg is my dear friend who picked up a camera a few years ago and has turned into one of the country's finest Read More

I'm taking some summery time off this week, and so am repeating a post from May, 2014, How to Talk to Other Dog Owners.  Wanna talk about it? Here it is: When I was seeing a lot of clients I could always tell when I was tired because I started working with the dog, rather than training the owners. Perhaps that’s the irony of language: It makes communication easier in one sense, and harder in another. Things were so simple and clear when I was working with someone else’s dog. Trying to influence the behavior of the people felt much more complicated. It is not that I didn’t enjoy it–I love people, they are one of my two favorite species. It’s just that it was harder to work with them than the dogs. It’s no surprise then that talking to someone you’ve never met about their dog’s Read More

Our friend and colleague, Katha Miller-Winder, a prolific contributor to the comment section of this very blog ("Kat"), has published a valuable book that gives guidance and advice to those who'd like to join that special group of people and dogs who make the world a better place because of their efforts. Becoming a Therapy Dog Team is so good that I bought 20 copies to donate to the team Tootsie and I worked with, Pet Pals of Madison, WI. Whether you're an old pro or interested in getting started, this book belongs on your reading list. [Note that much of what I'll be talking about is really AAA--Animal Assisted Activities, but I'm using "therapy" here loosely because it is so widely used. Early in the book, Katha does a good job defining each term.] I can't tell you how many clients I Read More

  A recent study in Current Biology by Emily Bray, et. al., Early-emerging and highly heritable sensitivity to human communication in dogs, caught my eye recently, because it brings up a variety of interesting issues to those of us interested in human-dog communication. One of those is the issue of whether dogs inherently understand a pointing gesture made by a human. In my experience with hundreds and hundreds and hundreds (you get the idea) of puppies, they don't. If you extend your arm and finger in a particular direction, puppies either ignore it or lick your hand if they are close enough. But they don't look or move in the direction in which you are pointing. However, laboratory study after study has shown the opposite--that puppies and adult dogs, with no training, know Read More

In keeping with my new schedule, the first post of the month is always just photographs. Here's a sampling of life at the farm over the weekend: First, we had a joyous reunion with three other couples on Saturday night who we haven't seen in a year and a half. They regaled us with ridiculously marvelous food and wonderful stories. We brought a "bumbleberry pie" (this version was strawberry, black cap raspberry and rhubarb) and flowers I arranged from the garden: What a wonderful thing to be with dear friends (all fully vaccinated) after so long! Happily the fireworks noise related to the weekend was far enough away when we returned home that Maggie only once came over to the bed for reassurance. Earlier in the week, Jim and I had our first successful overnight in our new Read More