Wheeeee, the new 1/2 day seminar on play that I did in California a few weeks ago is out now on DVD, thanks to lots of hard work by Alta at Tawzer Videos. You can learn more about Dog Play on my website, but here's the summary: The seminar focused on three aspects of canine play: 1) The Natural History of Play: What IS play after all? Who plays and Why? (Those questions turn out to be much more complicated than you might think and have all kinds of interesting implications for us and our dogs!) 2) Play Between Dogs: What do we know about the development of play in dogs? The seminar includes new research out of Barbara Smut's lab in Michigan about the development of play in dogs and what is "natural" and what is not. It also includes an in-depth discussion, with lots of videos, about Read More
Cesar Millan and Merial
You may have heard by now that the pharmaceutical company Merial (they make Heartguard and Frontline) have teamed up with Cesar Millan to promote their products. They are offering veterinary clinics a deal this summer in which they can give any client who buys Heartguard or Frontline a free DVD from Cesar titled "Mastering Leadership!" They will even include a DVD that clinics can use to "entertain" their clinics in the waiting room (they did not use the word "educate") with segments from "Mastering Leadership with Cesar." I'm happy to say that the American College of Veterinary Behaviorists and several CAABs (Certified Applied Animal Behaviorists) have written Merial to complain. The paragraph below is an excerpt from a letter by CAAB Suzanne Hetts Ph.D. "Scientific research about how Read More
The miracle of our relationship with dogs
I'm off in an hour to Virginia to do the For the Love of a Dog seminar on Saturday (about emotions in people and dogs) and a half day version of Both Ends of the Leash (focusing on how OUR behavior influences that of our dogs). Both seminars are fulfilling to do, I love doing them both. Spending a day on emotions---the basis of our bond with dogs if you think about it---is always wonderful for me. Every time I give the seminar I learn something new, and every time I end the day overwhelmed at the miracle of our relationship with a entirely different species. Think about it: two very different species with individuals who will risk their life for a member of the other species. That's amazing, truly amazing. On Sunday we'll become field ethologists observing the always interesting Read More