It's not often that a photograph motivates a topic for the blog, but when friend and colleague Melissa McCue-McGrath sent me this image of her dog Captain, along with a suggestion to write a post on pica, how could I resist? In spite of the amusing photo (no, Captain didn't really drink any booze), pica can be a serious problem. I saw one dog who lived by a rocky outcropping, and ate rocks compulsively. The vet had already done three surgeries to remove them, and said there was too much scar tissue to attempt another.Pica refers to the ingestion of non-food items, often with an assumed compulsive component to it. This isn't too difficult to diagnose in people, but gets a bit trickier in dogs. Animals whose name in Navajo is "eater of horse poop" can hardly be diagnosed with a serious Read More

I'm reading a book called Joyful: The Surprising Power of Ordinary Things to Create Extraordinary Happiness, by Ingrid Fetell Lee. If you need a lift (who doesn't now?), get yourself a copy of this book immediately. I bought it awhile ago, feeling somewhat abashed that I'd been convinced by slick marketing to spend money on a superficial "feel good" book with little substance.Oh, how happy I am to have been wrong. Joyful is a wonderful combination of stories, experiences and science that truly does have the power to make our lives better, without massive investments in time, energy or money. The author has spent a considerable amount of time figuring out what actually, truly makes people happy, and her conclusions are head-slappingly obvious--once stated--but usually Read More

I just can’t write much today. I’m both gutted and enraged by what’s going on nationally related to sexual assault and trauma. I cycle between stunned immobility and anger-fueled empowerment. I've struggled about what to write--nothing? Repeat a post? But the feeling that I had to say something wouldn't go away. And then I realized I’ve already said something. As a matter of fact, I wrote a whole book about it. Here's part of it:From The Education of Will, Healing a Dog, Facing My Fears, Reclaiming My Life:I wasn’t crazy about my job at the nonprofit, but I did enjoy organizing our annual conference. During my last year there, I was also responsible for presenting a talk on the importance of including women in treatment plans for alcoholics. . . An hour before my presentation, Read More

In my relentless pursuit of making mistakes myself so that you can avoid them, here are two recent examples of ways I've attempted to confuse my dogs.The first example relates to Willie charging through the door when we said "Willie, wait".  He is usually very responsive to the cue "wait", and I couldn't figure out why he was barreling out of the house when we asked him to wait at the door. Both Jim and I began getting all primate-like and frustrated when Willie flew through our legs (or into them) after we asked him to stay still.Fortunately, I took a breath and thought it through, and realized it was me that was causing the problem. (Can you hear me sigh?) Years ago, when I had five dogs, I taught all the dogs to wait at the door when I said "Dogs, wait". Then I released each dog Read More

You know it's fall when good friends Jeff and Denise invite you to their annual cider-making celebration. It might be one of my favorite ways to spend a Saturday afternoon. (Jeff was my advisor in graduate school; I love that he lives near by and we are good friends.)First, you pick apples. Apples and apples and apples. Apples that have not been sprayed or treated in any way except to prune them in their early years, and then let nature take its course. They don't look like the apples you buy in the store; their skins are covered in blemishes and their size varies greatly, even from the same tree. Some are tiny, the size of walnuts. Some are huge and round and look, well, fat. The tiny, red ones are super sweet, with just the right amount of tang. The fat, green ones are richer, more Read More