Dog walkers do not show up on my radar very often, living as I do on a farm in the country. Jim and I are the dog walkers, and we like it that way. However, I am also aware how very lucky we are to have the time and the logistics to be able to take our dogs on long walks. Certainly I've worked long hours--I've seen many a twelve-hour day in my time--but I always had the luxury of working close enough to run home to let out dogs or to bring them to my office. There have been some days, especially when I taught at UW-Madison, that I had to ask a friend to take my dogs out (thank you Harriet!), but those days were relatively rare. Nor have I seen a lot of clients as an animal behaviorist who came to me because they wanted to be a dog walker and wanted to know how to get started. But when a Read More
Healthy Dog Play in Georgia, Sweet Georgia
We're just back from a short week with good friends Jim and Peg in northern Georgia. Heavenly! They live on a gorgeous 200 acre farm and we got to enjoy the fun of 80+ new born lambs, and none of the work, thanks to our hard working hosts. Maggie and Willie got to work sheep every day, along with numerous long walks with the seven resident Border Collies on the property. Basically, we ate (Jim A. is the best amateur chef I know), walked (two stunningly beautiful hikes and lots of dog walks) and worked dogs (Peg is one of the top handlers in the country and gave me some invaluable advice). Sounds rough, doesn't it? Here's a huge shout out to Peg and Jim for their gracious hospitality. I thought you'd enjoy a sequence of dog play that I took with the camera on rapid fire "continuous Read More
Adopting Littermates… (Don’t)
The title of this post is a bit strong, but I do want to caution people from adopting two dogs from the same litter because "it's easier" to raise two at once (ask someone with twins if it's easier than having one child) or "we don't want our dog to be lonely." (Because you might be if the dogs are so enchanted with each other that they ignore you). I'm writing this now because we have gotten a number of questions about this issue lately: "Someone told me I shouldn't adopt dogs from the same litter, is that true?" Far be it from me to say what you should or shouldn't do, but there are a lot of red flags related to getting pups from the same batch. Before I say more, I should add that I've looked and asked around for any research on this issue and haven't found a thing that supports (or Read More
Summer Fun, from Frogs to Sheepdogs
It's a light post today, in celebration of the waning days of summer and a bucket of writing to do for speeches (both on "People, Dogs & Trauma,"one a Keynote at ADI Trainer's Conference in Denver, the other a Keynote at APDT in Hartford, CT), revising a chapter with Aubrey Fine in the Handbook on Animal Assisted Therapy, and working on my memoir.) Every day I ask myself what I am grateful for, and today I'm thanking the universe for this little green frog who is an Eastern Grey Tree Frog. (Apparently you can order them in a variety of colors. This one arrived in green.) There is no scale in the photo, but he is tiny, perhaps an inch and a half max. I never would have noticed him if I hadn't been on my daily round of picking Japanese Beetles off of my plants and dunking them Read More
Sunflowers Make Me Smile
Today's blog isn't quite what was planned, because Willie scared us by developing a mass on his foreleg that looked exactly like the sarcoma tumor his uncle Luke had at a similar age. Willie's mass developed quickly over the weekend, looked like a copy of Luke's tumor and is on the same part of his foreleg as Luke's was. Scary stuff. But good news! It looks like it is just a cyst, so in all probability it is nothing to worry about. The vet did still recommend taking it off, in part to prevent it growing and causing trouble, and also to be absolutely sure that it isn't cancerous. Willie will have the surgery tomorrow, which means much of our sheepdog work will have to go on pause until he recovers in 14 days. He is NOT going to like being back on a leash (argh, breaks my heart to do this Read More
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