+top trainer of animal actors (SVU, Sex and the City, Disney, the list goes on!) +have fun with your dog learning cool new tricks +http://subscribe.dogpotentialunleashed.com/ + https://linktr.ee/dogpotentialunleashed
Not Today
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(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 small part because we, too, have aged. The prism through which we view their life and death is not the same. There are a lot of repetitive refrains we tell each other and ourselves. There are words we use and words we typically don't. They pass, they gain wings, they go over the rainbow bridge. They let us know the time has come. We release them from suffering. We let them go. Because we cannot fathom the hard edge of reality. That the line between us is severing. That we as we know it will be no more. Death is a hard word to pull out of one's mouth. Kiss has given me more time to think about loss than any dog who came before. We are 14 months into hospice. I am following her because I don't really know this terrain. I pick her up when she stumbles and falls. Sometimes we wonder, together, whether it's worth getting up this time. But once righted, she chooses her direction and moves on. This is where we are now. She is the most judgmental of dogs, and perhaps, to be anthropomorphic, the least sentimental. She is fiercely loyal to those she has deigned to love, but even we are not above being critiqued and corrected when we do not toe the line. Kiss lives her life striving to be and do the best, she expects nothing less from us. Do dogs teach us things by who they are? Kiss simultaneously judges me and loves me unconditionally. She might think I'm an idiot sometimes, but I'm her idiot. Dogs teach us a different way of loving. So heavy with responsibility yet so free of expectation. Kiss is dying but it's enough that right now we can say not today.
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DOG POTENTIAL UNLEASHED
+top trainer of animal actors (SVU, Sex and the City, Disney, the list goes on!) +have fun with your dog learning cool new tricks +http://subscribe.dogpotentialunleashed.com/ + https://linktr.ee/dogpotentialunleashed
(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,...
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...
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...