Cape Breton, Nova Scotia. What a fabulous place! Jim and I feel crazy lucky to have been able to have spent a week there with three other couples. We rented an AirBnB on Boularderie Island together, inspired by Celtic Colours, an island-wide celebration of music, and the sights and sounds of a truly multi-cultural place.…

Here’s an interesting question: Should you teach a dog the concept of “no, don’t do that?” If so, how would you teach it? This came up during a discussion generated by an earlier post, “Asking versus Telling.” It was mentioned that very few classes teach the concept of “Don’t do that,” but lots of owners…

Dogs play more together when being watched, a research result I’ve been fascinated by since it came out in 2021. Maggie, playing with Skip in the photo above, is the poster child for this phenomenon. She’ll stop, look at me, pointedly. Why? We all know I’m just guessing, but I get the distinct impression that…

It is Labor Day as I write this, a holiday that deserves a lot of attention. There is controversy about exactly who got it started, but forces gathered in 1882 to pay tribute to laborers and workers who rarely get attention and acknowledgement. It feels especially important now, given the Writer’s Guild of America strike…

  This post is inspired by Katha Miller-Winder’s new book: Practicing Partnership: A therapy dog and his person. My favorite part of the book (definitely recommended for anyone with, or about to have, a therapy dog), is on page 7 and 8: “If I’m being a true partner for my dog, I’ve given the dog…

Today it’s all (sort of) MEANWHILE, down on the farm, because I’m spoiling myself and writing about our family vacation in Vermont, and the “joys” of reality at home. First, the good. The very, very good: We splurged on a Billings family vacation in the Green Mountains of Vermont last week. Jim’s two sons, wives/partners,…

It’s not often that an author emails you and asks your blessing to use what is essentially the title of one of your own books. But I got an email in January from Pilley Bianchi, the daughter of Dr. John W. Pilley, who not only made his dog Chaser famous, he changed our expectations of…

I’m so curious what you think of what’s happening in this video. As you can see, it’s label suggests that the dam is “teaching her puppies to be calm.”        (Video from the YouTube channel of Sent from Heaven) What I’m especially interested in is the reaction I got when I posted this on Facebook…

Last week we traveled to the Rush Creek Sheepdog Trial outside of Sidney, Ohio. We took it slow, took two days to get there and two days back, and every day I felt grateful for how fun it is to travel with Skip and Maggie. Our meandering trip–lots of small roads off the interstate–meant three…

So, last year Jim built me some beautiful raised beds so that I could grow veggies without fighting the jungle of weeds that encroach all my gardens like an advancing army. The beds are so high that I don’t have to bend over to tend them—Jim actually had to make one shorter when I realized…

Wow. I just listened to the first episode of Season Four of Michael Shikashio‘s podcast, The Bitey End of the Dog. He interviews a range of great thinkers related to canine aggression in his podcast, including, this season, Karen London and Mark Beckoff. But the first episode was with me, focusing on trauma in dogs.…

I’m not seeing clients anymore, beyond helping out an occasional friend, but a conversation with some colleagues got me thinking about the value of thinking through an issue with your dog as if you were your own client. I’ve used this technique before myself–writing out the “problem behavior,” deciding what behavior I do want in…

Recently I had the honor of writing the forward for an important and timely book: The Role of Companion Animals in the Treatment of Mental Disorders. Published by the American Psychiatric Association, this book is a testament to the hard work of mental health researchers and practitioners who are doing their best to find when,…

Watching dogs play well together is one life’s greatest joys. One of my essential criteria when looking for a dog to replace Willie was whether he played well with Maggie. We tried two dogs out before we found Skip, neither of whom had any interest in playing with Maggie. Maggie ignored one, and hated the…

Cookies! Praise! Belly Rubs! Using positive reinforcement feels so easy, and is such a great way to have a healthy and happy relationship with your dog. The research is overwhelming that training with R+ builds trust, reduces stress, and is effective at teaching new and desired behaviors. And. Yet. There are plenty of pitfalls to…

Rough week, and now my computer is freezing up. My long-planned next post is delayed yet again, because I need to “put the oxygen mask on first.” (ie, take care of myself.) The snowdrop flowers below have lived through down pouring rains, sleet, hail, numerous snows, and 16 degree nights. Tiny white jewels of inspiration.…

Wendy Barker, my oldest sister, a brilliant and beautiful poet who was beloved by thousands, died last week on March 11th. She was 80 years old, and still writing. She had been ill, but was scheduled to leave the hospital that day. She had a heart attack in the middle of the night. I had…

  Finishing a first draft of any book is a big deal, even though every experienced author knows there is tons and tons of work to do. That is not an understatement. I’d say it’ll be one and a half to two years before this sees the light of day. But, still. I started playing…

  My first dog training class, in 1968, involved my adolescent Saint Bernard and an ex-marine instructor who hung a Basenji off a choke chain for not sitting when told. Me and my dog walked out. Years later, in the 80’s, I became interested in dog training and took a friend’s dog to classes for…

  “They SAID he was house trained!” “She said he loved EVERYBODY!” “He was FINE at my house! What did the new owners do to him?” Every trainer and behaviorist who does consults hears these phrases on a regular basis. About the “house trained” spaniel who pees on the rug, the “everybody loving” Border collie…

Today is all photos from our trip to Arizona. We just got back, and it was good to be in my home state for a visit. I admit to not wanting to live in the desert any more (too many thorns, too hot in summer, too little green), but there’s nothing like going back to…

  A cosmetic surgeon once told me that he dreads Sunday night phone calls. They are, almost always, about kids who need their faces put back together after being bitten by a dog. He said it breaks his heart. It breaks my heart too, thinking of the hundreds of cases I saw where the owner…

I am writing this on Monday, January 2nd, the year two thousand and twenty three. An arbitrary date, of course, depending on the whims of history and culture. Yet, I love the ritual of dipping into the river of time, and the gift it gives us to reflect and look ahead. You all know, no…

Stress? Why would I be talking about that now? Aren’t the holidays nothing but joy and cheer and hot chocolate with beloved Uncle Bob? But you know why . . .  Maybe you had to take three planes to visit Bob, or drive through fog for eight hours, or Uncle Bob is a . .…

Last week I savored your responses to my Giving Thanks post. No matter how big or how small, it’s good for us, and those around us, to let gratitude soothe our souls. Today, I’m focusing on giving thanks through the “Giving” part. It’s Giving Tuesday, and although, like me, you mighty be feeling a tad…

The downhill holiday slide has begun: Cook everything you can think of for Thanksgiving dinner! Get an early start on Christmas cards to get them on sale! Order Christmas presents that have to be mailed soon! Decide what to give to everyone else, including the dogs! Start Christmas cooking! Work on future blogs about good…

Last week’s post on teaching dogs “Enough,” when you are tired of being a petting machine, elicited a request from reader Nana-Mary: “Speaking of our two dogs, I would love some tips on controlling the BARKING! I know that we don’t want to discourage ALL barking, but sometimes it gets way out of control. It’s…

Let me start with a story, one that I relayed in Bark Magazine in 2005: When I was taping the Animal Planet show Petline, a veterinarian-turned-sales-rep asked to borrow Cool Hand Luke for a demonstration on dental care. Luke and I had JUST finished a segment on how much dogs dislike being patted on top…

It’s just a wonderful feeling, knowing that what you’ve written has been published in a variety of languages. Imagining people reading The Other End of the Leash in Polish or Spanish makes me smile. It’s not just the intellectual knowledge that one’s books have circled the globe; it as much a feeling of connection. A…

I was clearing out the (way too many) photos on my laptop, and ran into this video from years ago. It pretty much sums up the relationship between dogs and cats: Highly variable, and always interesting. Some dogs are best friends with cats, some ignore them, and some either chase them, or try to herd…

“Oh no, he’s just fine! Go ahead and pet him.” If I heard that once, I heard it a thousand times, from owners anxious for me to pet their dog, while their dog begged me not to. Of course, the dogs didn’t say so, but their body language spoke volumes. Mouth closed, stiff bodied (even…

Location. Location. Location. Or, perhaps, environment, environment, environment. That’s one of the keys to making your cat(s) truly happy, as author Zazie Todd, PhD, told me in an interview we did last week about her excellent new book Purr: The Science of Making Your Cat Happy. In a way, it’s simple: Understand cats, and act…

This week’s post is a repeat from four years ago. I thought of it recently when trying to take a photo of a friend’s dog, who kept turning his head away from the camera lens. I love this example of how understanding ethology helps us understand the behavior of other animals. (Full disclosure: It also…

Not long ago I asked readers to tell me what they’d like to talk about, and got a plethora of great ideas. One of them that hit home was the question of whether dogs could “be autistic.” (Best described as on ASD, or Autism Spectrum Disorder, which effects social communication, learning, and behavior.) I’ve met…

Read this book. Get it from the library, buy it, or borrow it, but do what you can to read it. I know . . . you might have a pile of books beside your bed (guilty) and bookcases stuffed beyond capacity (guilty), and not want to hear about yet ANOTHER book to read (depends…

Well, I was going to write about some of the great information in Ed Young’s best-selling book, An Immense World, and then, life happened. As it does, when we have other plans. My day started at 5:30 AM (“did you know your website is down?”) and turned into (“your website got hacked”), and went down…

Is it possible to apologize to a dog? I’m not sure there is an answer to that question. But I wish there was, and I’d love to have a discussion about it. Here’s what got me thinking about apologies to friends who don’t understand all the intricacies of human language: Last week I was working…

First: Maggie is alive. Second: She almost wasn’t. All thanks to a cork. Which she ate. Which almost killed her. I’m telling the story in hopes it will educate, inform, and inspire. And don’t we all love a good dog story, as long the the dog doesn’t die? This one didn’t, but it was pretty…

Due to a glorious visit from five family members, straight out of a commercial for _______ (Fill in the blank–Allergy medicine? Arthritis medicine?), in which old people are still able to keep up with and enjoy the youngsters, I’m behind on everything else. “Everything else” being far less important than family, right? (Note: Using the…

You might have noticed that there have been no photographs of cats in the last several months. That’s because there are no cats living here now, but I couldn’t write about it until it wasn’t so raw. (See many of Brené Brown’s works for excellent discussions of when, and when not, to go public with…

I’d love to have a conversation about avoiding over heating in dogs. We all know that it can be a life or death issue for all dogs, but the fact is that my Skip overheats easily. Very, very easily. It may be that his bad heart is the only factor, or perhaps there are others,…

It seems I went to sleep about a month ago and had an endless dream that I woke up in the Aleutian Islands. Days and days of forty mile an hour winds, forty degree temperatures, lots of rain. I woke up for a few days in Wisconsin, then had a nightmare that I was in…

[Caution: The following contains details of sheepdog trials and a video of one of Skip’s runs. If that bores you to tears, no worries, I won’t be offended. Just skip this; I’ll see you next time!) We’re just back from the Nippersink or Swim Sheepdog Trial outside of Lake Geneva, and in spite of blustery…

I  know, I know, I have books piled by my bed glaring at me waiting to be read. But here’s the good news: These two new books on Treat Search Tracking and Trick Training are the kind of books you can read a little or a lot, and take out what you want. I have…

I needed a distraction this week from, well, you know, so I started thinking about the nicknames we give to our dogs, and why we use them. We all grow up with nicknames for ourselves,our friends, and family, which can be supportive and fun (Star, Champ), or demeaning (Four Eyes, Fatso). I found this article…

  The following is an update from posts I’ve written in the past, introducing Dog Bite Prevention Week. Here’s what I’d love you to do this week–comment about “Dog bites I have known,” (sigh), or “How I prevented a bite about to happen.” So, so, SO many bites could be prevented if dog owners, dog…

  During the pandemic, my vet clinic didn’t allow owners inside. We handed our dogs off to a Vet Tech, and stood outside waiting in the snow, or the rain, or the sun, and paced around the parking lot. We sat in the car and checked our phones. One vet told me some clients drove…

Want to join me in doing research on our dogs’ food preferences in our own homes? I was inspired by a section in Linda Case’s book, Feeding Smart with the  Science Dog, that I wrote about in my last post. Somehow I missed a section on food preference research when I first went through the…

Nutrionist Linda Case’s new book, Feeding Smart with the Science Dog, is great. Truly great. I wrote several other introductory sentences, deleted them all, and finally settled on the simplest and most accurate one. If you’re anything like me, and I know many of you are, and you want to feed your dog as well…

We were going to go. Then we weren’t. We’d had plans for six months to go to Hawaii with friends. We all cancelled a few weeks ago, after Omicron raised its ugly head. Every morning for a week after we cancelled I woke up heartsick. I’ve been lucky in my travels–lucky beyond anything I could…