I don’t know how good a mother I was when my children were growing up. How are those things measured, and who measures them? It is patently unfair to ask one’s children, if they’re even moderately polite they will say something close to what one wants to hear. Did the kids turn out the way we wanted? That might mean that they might have survived despite our failures, because there’s so much else at play. And so it is with puppies, the vast majority of them turn out fine regardless of how many...
2 months ago • 2 min read
I generally find exaggeration incredibly off putting. Whether it's people making claims about their abilities, wins and successes, or tales of woes, accidents and misfortunes, it's really frustrating when things are blown to excessive proportions. Not so with dog tricks however. So many tricks seem to take on a whole new life when we encourage the dog to do the trick only more so. I was thinking about this while taking pictures of Know Me yawning. All my dogs can yawn on cue. The obvious...
2 months ago • 1 min read
Yesterday, a day that I had earmarked for sitting at my desk promoting my upcoming webinar, was gloriously sunny. Plans were modified. I let the dogs run the show for a time, and we played raucous games of tackle fetch together until they were panting heavily and ready for a rest. That took quite some time, as they are young, fit and love sport. While I was being repeatedly asked to throw the ball, often faster than I could compose myself from a previous toss, I thought about how 'common...
4 months ago • 2 min read
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...
5 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...
8 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...
8 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...
9 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,...
12 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...
12 months ago • 2 min read