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
Dogs don’t talk politics
I'm getting pretty bleary this mid-afternoon, having stayed up late last night, like much of the country, watching the election returns. As the evening progressed, I found myself on the floor, with Lassie on one side, and Willie on the other. Both of my paws were busy, stroking and petting my dogs non-stop, in my attempt to maintain a modicum of calm. No matter how you feel about the outcome, it was a historic night for our country, and like many others, I was wired, and didn't go to sleep until well into the morning hours. As I lay beside Willie's warm body and stroked Lassie's buttery soft fur last night, I thought about how wonderful it is that the dogs and I had never had heated, or even heart-felt discussions about politics, the election. . . or anything else for that matter. What a Read More
Using Play to Treat Aggression
The last great talk in the Play Symposium at APDT was a wonderful presentation by Karen B. London. She begin with the belief that play is under-utilized as a reinforcement and tool to treat aggression-related problems in dogs. Several types of behavioral problems were listed as being amendable to using play, including over-arousal, frustration-related aggression, the fear of strangers and reactivity to other dogs. Dr. London reminded us that play is so useful because it 1) is a high energy exercise that can motivate dogs and channel their energy in positive ways, 2) play is a skill if you think about it, and it can be used to teach incompatible behavior (go get your ball instead of barking at the stranger) and also can be used to help dogs learn emotional control, 3) an increased amount Read More
Are Pets Important 2, Wood work in Fall
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 be told, I was feeling a bit frustrated when I wrote last week. Part of that stemmed from recently hearing what I believe has been meant as a compliment to Calling All Pets. Several times I've heard people say that Calling All Pets is a good show for Wisconsin Public Radio because "it brings in people who wouldn't normally listen to pubic radio." This presupposes that the show's listeners are different than most listeners of public radio. Does that mean that most people who listen to public radio are not Read More
Are Pets Important? Will Comes into his Own.
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 titled "Pet Peeves." In it I write about our country's ambivalent feelings about our pets. On the one hand, many of us love them, treat them like family and can't imagine life without them. They are as important to our well-being as is literature, music and art. (For some of us, I'd add food, water and oxygen.) And yet, look at how often we hear people say, demeaningly, that an animal is "just a pet." Here's an excerpt from the essay: “Just a pet.” How many times have you heard someone say Read More