Here’s a question for you, based on a column I’m writing for The Bark magazine. The editors asked if I’d write a column about “training old dogs.” (The column on training male versus female dogs will be in the next issue… stay tuned!). The question: how does your training vary (or does it?) once your…

First things first! Lassie’s party was a joy. Many of her friends came to talk, eat and belly rub, and Lassie proclaimed it good. Very good indeed. Lassie reveled in the attention, Willie got tons of petting too and we all ate ourselves silly. Only downside is that I forgot to take photos (camera out…

Here’s the post I thought I’d lost! (Will my viral-hazed brain ever come back to normal?) Hey, I am back among the living. Not much energy, pretty slow in the head, but actually eating real food again (well, still can’t eat chocolate, which along with fresh spinach and warm bread is the only real food…

Well, so far there have been 40 comments on this question, and what interesting ones they have been. I’m going to summarize what folks have said so far (and also am sending this question out to a list of Certified Applied Animal Behaviorists and some professional trainers in different fields. If you are on any…

This is an honest question! I’m truly curious what you think.  The editor of the Bark Magazine asked me to write my next column on whether male and female dogs need to be trained differently, and whether they perform differently. I have some thoughts about it, but I am primarily interested in what YOU think!…

It’s a wonderful thing to hold a book you wrote in your hand, long after the writing and the editing and the discussions with the publishers about cover photos and who to ask for quotes on the back… My new book, Tales of Two Species: Loving and Living with Dogs just came from the printers,…

Well, I’ve edited and compressed 31 separate videos for my 2 talks at APDT. Whew. They aren’t perfect, but some of them are truly instructive and a few are just plain fun. It’s been like being in a tunnel for the last 4 days working on these things, and still… I continue to be fascinated…

I’m deep in “speech preparation” tunnel, working sun up to sun down on my presentations about play at APDT next week. It’s a lot of work, but gratifying. Play is such an interesting topic, I wish I could spend a few months doing nothing but learning, thinking and writing about it. One of the most…

I just arrived in Atlanta, and am about to settle in, go over my seminar for tomorrow and then watch some foolish movie that does nothing but entertain me and put me to sleep. But I wanted to write about a magazine that I just can’t get enough of–Scientific American Mind. If you are interested…

I have read your excellent comments with great interest, thank you all so much for writing. I do agree that in many ways it is far too simplistic to sort the world into two groups as I did in my earlier post. I suspect that it’s easy to oversimplify when you are frustrated, and truth…

I was working on my new book, coming out from Dogwise in early November, and found a section that relates, I suspect, to the cancellation of my radio show, Calling All Pets. The book, coming out from Dogwise, (Tales of Two Species) is a collection of my columns from Bark magazine. One of them is…

Another gorgeous fall day. Willie and I get to move the lamb flock through the woods every morning. The lambs stay the day in the ‘orchard pasture,’ so called because it’s full of wild apple trees, and the ewe flock gets to forage in the  big, open pasture at the top of the hill. They…

Oh, what a joy to be home in fall on the farm. It may have rained much of the weekend, but that’s okay, we needed the moisture. In spite of the rain I got to spend much of Sunday out in the country with Willie, Lassie and weekend visitor Brody (the Cavalier) out in the…

Home. Ummmm, feels so good. Even though the trip was wonderful in so many ways, it is SO good to be home. As I wrote earlier, I greatly enjoyed presenting a seminar in Sweden—the people were so kind and interesting, and our vacation in the fjord country of Norway was heavenly. (see the photos attached).…

I’m sitting in the lobby of the old Fredheim Hotel in Flam, Norway.  It’s at the base of an endless fjord on the west coast of Norway.  Gorgeous. I’m here because last weekend I presented a two day seminar in Tomalilla, Sweden (toe-ma-lee-lah… it’s really lovely to say!), hosted by Natasja and Daniel Atterbom. (eeeps,…

If you’re a professional dog trainer, you’ve repeated “never repeat a command” countless times. Surely it’s one of life’s greatest ironies. I’ve said it myself many a time, and I’ve written about how hard it is to follow that advice. How easily the second “Sit” comes after the first one, yes? I’ve gotten pretty good…

So I’m working Will, my young Border Collie, last night, asking him to push the lambs into a corner so that I could catch and treat a sick one. (Lambs get diarrhea just like people and dogs do, I suspect it feels just as bad for them as it does for the rest of us.…

I’m a little behind today, because yet again I stayed up too late watching the Olympics.  Addicting, aren’t they? And I’m not even that interested in sports… I was the girl who stood in right field in enforced elementary school softball games saying “Please don’t hit the ball to me, please don’t hit the ball…

“Puppy nerd” asked a great question in his or her comment: Given how visual dogs are, should one start an exercise with visual signals to help the dog get it right, and then switch to acoustic ones, or avoid visual signals altogether if you want your dog to pay attention to your voice?  Well, this…

I got back recently from doing a seminar in Ann Arbor, Michigan for the Ann  Arbor Dog Training Club.  What a wonderful audience; we had a fantastic time together. At least, I did, so thanks to Tammy and everyone at the club  for having me. One of my favorite parts of this seminar (Both Ends…

Well, no more storms, thank heavens, but I did read more of Through a Dog’s Ear. In it the authors talk about the effects of sound on the health of humans, as well as that of dogs. I’m as sound sensitive as a stereotypical sheltie, so I pricked up my metaphorical ears. Here I am,…