This past week, Know Me and I had fun playing a new game, mimicry. For most dogs, my others included, it's not all that fun. They prefer to have someone explain what's going on, to help them learn a task. But Know Me loves watching people and he thought this was the best thing ever. Here are a couple of YouTube videos. There are many things that have informed the changes in the way I interact with, and teach my dogs. Success is not part of it. Honestly, I find that argument frustrating. I...
about 2 months ago • 2 min read
The line between poetry and science is not delineation, it is the well worn trail we find ourselves on again and again. It is the comfortable space we find ourselves in when we have learned to both assimilate the knowledge gained from research and study, and the intuition gained from years of intimately sharing our lives with dogs, knowing them as well as we know ourselves. The line between poetry and science is where we find ourselves when we are at our best. When we, teacher, can see in...
4 months ago • 1 min read
See Ya died last Thursday morning. It was both a complete shock and not surprising. Last December she cheated death, as they say, spending days in ICU, receiving myriad treatments and coming out the other side. We have poked around at diagnosing what it was that nearly killed her then to no avail. This year it struck again and she did not survive. She is far from the first dog of mine to die, this is part of the bargain we make the moment they are born, the moment we hold that warm wet body...
5 months ago • 2 min read
(trigger warning - no one dies, but this has to do with death) Those of us who have lived our lives with dogs and who are no longer young have a certain understanding about dogs dying. We've been through it and we know the ins and outs. But we only know it as well as we know how to live in a home. We understand the rough layout, the touchstones that tell us we are here where we belong, but each place we have lived was different. Each dog steps in and out of our life in a different way, in no...
6 months ago • 1 min read
(WARNING - this is longer than usual and the topic is death, although no one dies) When we bring a dog into our life, we know, although we try not to, that at some point we might be called upon to end their life. It is profoundly important, when having to make these literal life and death decisions, to understand that there is no objective right or wrong. When we couch these choices in terms of ‘doing the right thing’ it can infer that those who make different choices are, by definition,...
9 months ago • 3 min read
The DPU tag line, 'The art is in remembering to play' comes from an essay I wrote a number of years ago. I have printed it in this newsletter before, however, I have gained many subscribers since then, so here it is again: Dog training, we are fond of saying, is as much an art as a science. Of course it is, because we don’t keep our dogs in Skinner boxes, they live with us as family members, privy to our moods and secrets, sharing our lives intimately, in a way that precludes us from keeping...
9 months ago • 2 min read
I briefly touched on this the other day, how taking pictures can help you to become a better teacher to your dog. Since it's something that I do on an almost daily basis, I thought I would delve a little more into the topic. After all, who doesn't want to get great pictures of their dog doing stuff and who doesn't want to improve their timing? The set up The ability to clearly see and react to the exact moment a behavior is happening is the single biggest factor that separates the best...
9 months ago • 2 min read
(if you follow me on Facebook, you've already read some of this. In addition to my regular newsletter material, I will also be sharing the a series about my young service dog Know Me, including how I came to have a service dog, the dogs that came before him, how he came into my life, and bits about his training. This is episode 1) There are a lot of different steps involved in partnering with a service dog, but the very first place you’ve got to put your feet is into the world of disability....
10 months ago • 4 min read
We come to training with so many preconceived notions, so many beliefs that we are not even aware are of, ways of doing that have become second nature, things that ‘everyone knows’ or ‘common sense’ or ‘science’, things that are buried deep in the way we move and think and hold our hands, our treats, our toys and leashes. Our language around dogs speaks to our times, or our sport, or our beliefs. Commands or cues? Rewards or reinforcers? We recognize each other and ourselves by what kind of...
about 1 year ago • 1 min read