Saturday, I caught up on my dog grooming duties. Most weeks that means Lilly and only Lilly, but I decided I’d attempt to trim Ginko’s front toenails. With a muzzle and enough cheese, I can occasionally get him to cooperate. Just as I imagined myself drafting a victory blog post, our celebratory dog training jackpot went terribly wrong.
Hey, kids. I did a FeedBurner thing (now owned by Google, I guess) that allows people to subscribe to the blog via email. It’s in ye olde sidebar to the right. It seems to be working OK. Not great, but OK. The problem? There is a sizeable delay between when I post new blog entries and when they arrive via email.
I learned yesterday that a blog owner in the UK is feeding my copyrighted blog content (and a bunch of others) into his blog. He lists someone else as the author. Can you say “copyright infringement”? I’m pretty sure it’s all done automatically, including Tweets on Twitter to drive more traffic to his site. I’m posting this as an experiment so see if it shows up today in his timeline. Hey, Mister! Stop stealing my blog!
One of the best ways to get readers’ (and, therefore, editors’) attention is to use superlatives. If something you write about is the biggest or smallest, best or worst, or better yet ONLY or FIRST, then chances are you’ve got a winner of an idea. However, the problem with such thinking is that it can warp you.
Well, kids. Today is my birthday, so rather than reinvent the wheel. Allow me, please, to merely point to my latest post over the Dog Food Dish (my new paid blogging gig), where I talk about the role of fat in dog food.
Some days, my brain buzzes with larger, more philosophical sides to dog training. In part, this happens because of items I see in dog world news such as this dog training summit. At some point soon, I may rant a bit on that very topic since I’m not shy about the fact that I’m no fan of “He Who Shall Not Be Named.” But, today, I wanted to share a distinction I think will help.
Answer me this: When your dog responds to cues or offers default behaviors or just generally behaves like a civilized canine citizen, do you feel a sense of power or pride?
Nadi, a golden retriever in our neighborhood, had her puppies about two weeks ago. As you may recall, she went missing during her pregnancy, so the fact that she and the pups are OK is darn near a miracle. She delivered nine. Eight survived. They are darling. I got my first chance to visit them over the weekend. Here is a quick video slide show of some photos.
No training update this week. Instead, just a quick note to say that I’m plugging away at the many glitches from our recent redesign and blog platform shift. My main goal, for now, is to find and fix all the broken links in the site.
Based on discussions with my dog writer & dog blogger friends, I’ve began to wonder … just how many dogs does it take before you (or anyone) truly knows anything about anything when it comes to dogs.
A lack of attention and concentration resulted in a comedy of errors, involving laundry, a game of fetch, and a somewhat famous border collie girl who spins when she gets excited.