Champion of My HeartA real-time memoir about life with a fearful border collie, by Roxanne Hawn

Nancy Kay, DVM and board-certified veterinary internal medicine specialist, published a new book called Your Dog’s Best Health: A Dozen Reasonable Things to Expect From Your Veterinarian. Perhaps you already know Dr. Kay from her earlier book … Speaking for Spot.

If you’re looking to develop a better partnership with your dog’s veterinarian, we highly recommend this book for insights into how things are changing and what you can and cannot expect as an active, engaged veterinary client.

I learned something new. For example, Dr. Kay advises — in a section about what your veterinarian expects from YOU inside Your Dog’s Best Health– “Unless instructed otherwise, dog your best to bring your dog in with an empty stomach and a full bladder.”

The stomach thing I knew, but the bladder? I ALWAYS get my dogs to pee on verbal cue before we go inside. It’s less about me worrying they will make a mess, and more about me wanting them to feel comfortable (not in bladder distress).

What do you think about that? Full bladders?

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Longtime syndicated columnist and dog writer Steve Dale recently published a new eBook through Tribune Media Services — Good Dog. Since I don’t have a Kindle, I’ve not had the chance to read it. However, when I asked Dale about the history of dog training — going back to before I was born — he shared some interesting insights.

You see, I knew that the dominance / punishment style of dog training that I loathe really took hold back in the 1960s. What I did NOT know is that positive reinforcement practitioners were also on the scene back then.

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Fellow Coloradoan (by way of California) Holli Pfau co-founded a nationally recognized program for animal-assisted therapy in hospitals. She shares her adventures, starting with Golden Retriever #1 Nikki in her new book Pure Gold.

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Fellow dog writer and dog blogger Peggy Frezon from Peggy’s Pet Place asked us to take part in blog book tour to promote her new book Dieting With My Dog: One Busy Life; Two Full Figures and Unconditional Love. I’m VERY good at keeping Lilly’s weight perfect, and I mean perfect. Even our veterinary nutritionist friend said Lilly had a perfect body condition. Me? As I mentioned last week, not so much. So, I asked Peggy a few questions about her weight-loss journey.

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Lauren Vancouver is at it again in the second novel in Linda O. Johnston‘s pet rescue mystery series, The More the Terrier. Director of a private, no-kill shelter, Vancouver gets caught up in a murder mystery, when her former mentor (turned hoarder) is accused in the death of a smarmy cosmetics mogul who strong-arms small shelters and rescue groups to join her animal rescue network.

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Who can resist a book review pitch with the headline, “Share the Awkwardness”? Not me, clearly. Here, then, is our book review of Awkward Family Pet Photos from Mike Bender and Doug Chernack, the New York Times best-selling authors of Awkward Family Photos. Don’t miss your chance to win a copy of the book. It’s a perfect gag item for upcoming holiday gift exchanges.

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Sharon Langford compiled stories and years worth of insights from the many rescued dogs with whom she has shared her life. Living With the Rescues: Life Lessons and Inspirations chronicles those experiences and details exactly how she manages such a large multi-dog household. I won’t mince words. I could NOT do what she does.

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Angelo is a border collie, living in a remote area of Colorado’s San Luis Valley. Angelo’s Journey tells the story of when he went missing for more than five weeks in 2010. Here is our book review.

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Friday’s eureka-moment post about Lilly’s summertime fears of the house comes from something I read in Alexandra Horowitz’s book “Inside of a Dog: What Dogs See, Smell, and Know”. Today, a few other items of note from the book.

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Carole Moore, my friend and mentor, wrote a powerful, deeply researched account of missing persons and the people who look for them. In some 200 pages, Carole thrusts you into the heartbreak when a loved one disappears.

In clean, direct prose, The Last Place You’d Look tells many real-life stories from the view of a:

• Former police officer
• Modern journalist

She pulls no punches in descriptions of where law enforcement might fail and where families make irrevocable mistakes (like having 1,400 of their own volunteer searchers tromp all over a possible crime scene).

The stories of missing persons and unidentified bodies are gritty and sad, but I never felt a sense of reader despair. I certainly hope with all my heart that I never face a loved one vanishing, but after reading Carole’s book … at least I know some of what to expect … including how Amber Alerts and various crime databases work .

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The first in a new series of pet rescue mysteries, Beaglemania is the latest novel from writer Linda O. Johnston. Set inside a well-funded, no-kill shelter near Los Angeles, the book opens with a puppy mill raid where someone dumped several puppies down a storm drain before animal control officials arrive.

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Big congrats and thanks for playing along to Laura, Lance, and Vito from The Dogs are Really in Charge. They won our Marcus of Umbria giveaway.  On their blog, they tell all sorts of stories about their mixed family that includes a corgi (that’s Lance), a toller pup (that’s Vito), FIVE ferrets and a cat named Like. Oh, and did we mention that there’s now a service puppy in training in da house? That’d be Chuck (a chocolate lab, who is just too cute).

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Congratulations to Murphy’s mom from over at Murphy’s Law (a blog about a young Great Dane). She won my review copy of Canine Colors, that new dog matching system I blogged about last week. It’s an especially happy thing because this header photo is enough to improve even the WORST Monday.

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Justine van der Leun‘s new book Marcus of Umbria: What an Italian Dog Taught an American Girl about Love essentially ends with Justine and Marcus getting on a plane in Italy to return to a non-existent home stateside. As I mentioned in yesterday’s book review, while I liked the book a lot, what intrigued me more was what happened next. So, Justine and I spent a good hour or more on the phone Monday, talking about Marcus and how she learned to live in a modern, urban world.

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In Marcus of Umbria: What an Italian Dog Taught an American Girl about Love, fellow freelance writer Justine van der Leun tells her tale of fleeing a magazine job in New York City for a much-needed fling with a hot guy in the Italian countryside. Amid her many stranger-in-a-strange-land adventures, the true love story unfolds between Justine and a field-bred, English Pointer that she names MARCUS before realizing the sad, neglected dog she found is a GIRL.

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