True confessions: I'm just back to work, after a lovely holiday weekend with Jim, Maggie and Willie. (Tootsie got to stay home with a farm sitter and be Dog #1 all weekend. I suspect she loved it.) No time then to do research on this week's blog, but here's a scrap book of some of our fun: We stayed at a dear friend's cabin in the woods about 2 hours away from the farm. Here's our favorite road sign of the trip: I will leave it to your imagination to imagine the jokes that ensued. We did find ourselves needing to stop at a gas station soon after seeing the signs though... Maggie and Willie loved where we stayed. Forty acres of Maple-Birch-Beechwood woods, great hiking trails and our very own pond with water lilies, a resident Kingfisher, and Bullfrogs whose croaking sounded so Read More
Is “Territorial Aggression” a Useful Term?
A few years ago some CAAB colleagues and I got into a discussion with some veterinary behaviorists about who could use the term "diagnosis" in regard to canine behavioral problems. The vet behaviorists argued that "diagnosis" was a medical term and could only be used by medical professionals. Mentioning that auto mechanics use the term all the time when figuring out what is wrong with a car seemed to have no effect. Although I found the vet's arguments illogical, I don't use the term myself, (I use "evaluation") so if those individuals feel a need to scent mark on a particular word, then I'll leave them to it. However, it did bring up the point that words matter. And reminded me that I do have a problem with one popular "diagnosis" — "territorial aggression." According to the chapter Read More
It’s All About SPARCS
I'm in one of those work tunnels. You know the kind. You give up on cooking and forget about doing laundry, because you are enmeshed, entangled, and submerged by something you are working on. The good news is that the work is exciting, fun and engaging. I'm giving two talks at SPARCS, or the Society for the Promotion of Applied Research in Canine Science, and it's all I really want to be doing right now. And it's all that I feel like I can be doing, because I want these talks not just to be interesting, but to be intellectually stimulating. Okay, and great. Or at least, really, really good. SPARCS's mission statement says: "SPARCS was created as a platform where modern animal behavior science can be presented, discussed, and debated by the greatest minds in canine science." You can Read More
Resource Guarding Revisited
A little over a year ago I wrote a post about the causes and treatment of resource guarding. It generated a lot of interest, and no wonder. It is such a common problem. Ironically, I was reminded of that by the opposite: My new dog Maggie seems happy to let any person or any dog take away whatever she has in her mouth. She is the classic "dog in a manger," because she wants whatever toy Willie has, even if I give her its exact replicate. She wants it because Willie has it. And yet, any one could take a bone out of her mouth, and she is happy to share her water bowl or the wading pool and just about everything else I can think of. Perhaps happy isn't the right word. What do I know about how she feels about it? But she tolerates it without any sign of distress, and I am grateful every day Read More
Memorial Day and Dogs in War
It is Memorial Day in the United States; a day for remembering those who have lost their lives in war. It is only fitting that National Geographic just came out with an article on "The Dogs of War." I read with it the same mixed feelings I always have on the topic of young, healthy lives lost because of our inability to solve conflicts without violence--admiration and respect for those in the military, and deep sadness for all the loss that war creates. It seems only right then to take a moment to thank all of the dogs that have been enlisted into our battles; for their commitment to a job, to their moments of bravery, and to the comfort that they give to the men and women caught in conflicts, far away from home. I admit to feeling a great sense of sadness that they are there at all, Read More
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