I'm little and adorable and I might bite you. Because you pick me up and sweep me into the air when I least expect it and it scares me and I hate it and no matter what I do I can't seem to stop 2-legs from doing it to me all the time like some monster out of a horror movie. What else am I going to do to protect myself? Call my lawyer? Okay, I, the writer here, could never be described as little, my husband occasionally tells me that I am adorable, but, well, he's my husband, and I have never bitten anyone in my life. Nor have I threatened to. (No promises about the future.) But surely that's not a bad approximation of what tens of thousands of little dogs are wanting to tell us. A good friend of mine told me that her Papillon puppy morphed from outgoing to fearful because so many Read More

I was finishing up reading the Sunday paper yesterday, while thinking about which topic to choose for today's blog. I always have several lists of potential topics, scattered hither and yon, one usually tucked under the To Do list that begins "Be More Organized." Almost done with the newspaper, skimming through the Parade section, I came across Marilyn vos Savant's column, Ask Marilyn, and Presto Chango, a new topic was chosen. In the column, a reader asks why dogs are more afraid of thunder than cats, given that "dogs seem more intelligent."  Marilyn's response was that, indeed, cats are far more intelligent than dogs, and being smarter, have learned that thunder won't hurt them. Oh my.  Oh my my my. There are two roads I could go down here. First is the issue about the intelligence Read More

We're just back from the Nippersink Sink or Swim Sheepdog Trial, and I'm still glowing over Maggie's work. Don't get me wrong here--we neither won nor came close to it, but my goal has been to progress in the Open class such that I felt we belonged there, and it is starting to feel like we do. Last season, we ran 4 trials on an Open course, had a few great moments, but lots of, uh, learning experiences. But we both did indeed learn a lot, and Maggie and I got used to barely being able to see each other when working 350 or 500 yards apart. A few weeks ago we had our first competition of the season, and we again had some ups and downs. I made several mistakes, Maggie got overwhelmed by testy sheep, and but she also did some really good work and I made some good decisions. (Full Read More

Friend and colleague Chelse Wagner of Dog's Best Friend and I were talking a few days ago about what life is like in the dog training world, and Chelse commented about her surprise that so few dogs were bothered by people wearing masks. She works with a lot of reactive dogs, and not only were few dogs bothered by half of her face being covered up, some dogs seemed to be more comfortable if she had a mask on. More comfortable? Now, that's interesting. Remember when masks became prevalent and articles appeared with concerns that dogs would freak out when confronted by mask wearers? In June, Gene Weingarten wrote in the Washington Post that several dogs had reacted fearfully to his mask, including one who "nearly took my hand off." Curious about the issue, I asked my Facebook readers on Read More

Getting stung by wasps led me to learn about all kinds of "non-traditional" treatments, including an application of the common weed, plantain. (I wish I'd tried it; one of our readers swore by it, and later I learned about its medicinal properties. Impressive.) We have plantain everywhere here on the farm, and next time I get stung I'm chewing up some leaves to release the tannins that draw out the venom and compress tissues to decrease pain and swelling. One thing led to another, and down the rabbit hole I went, until I found this post I wrote in 2015 about placebos and dogs. I still find the issue fascinating, and would love to hear your thoughts on the issue. But first, read about the research that reminds us of the power of the environment on even our body's internal Read More