Author: Roxanne Hawn

Trained as a traditional journalist and based in the Rocky Mountains of Colorado, USA, I'm a full-time freelance writer for magazines, websites, and private clients. My areas of specialty include everything in the lifestyles arena, including health and home, personal finance and other consumer interests, relationships and trends, people and business profiles ... and, of course, all things pet related. I don't just love dogs. I need them in my life. Seriously.

Hot News

Lilly vs. Rattlesnake (part 1)

Saturday afternoon (8/30) around 4:30 – 5:00 pm, it seems Lilly got a rattlesnake bite right in the face. Tom and I were both outside most of the day. We did not see anything. We did not hear anything – no rattling, no barking, no cries of pain, no urgent need for comfort. Just all of a sudden she seemed to have a fat lip. We assumed it was a bee sting, until an hour later when the swelling had spread to nearly the whole side of her head. Here are more details and some photos. …

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Dog Training Update | Dogs on Drugs

Weekly Training Update (Aug 29)

Based on Lilly’s regression (door refusals, hiding, fleeing, panic) and negative response to the sink window counter-conditioning I mentioned in the Aug 15 training update, Jennie (our behaviorist) and I decided to make some changes — both in training challenges and in medications. …

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Info-Share | Musings

Shelter Shopping

While putting together our evacuation plan, I needed to look up some phone numbers of local shelters. As I clicked around, I realized that one of them uses old-fashioned, dominance-based, often inhumane strategies to train shelter dogs. Apparently, they offer classes in this method to community members. They even claim that issues like fear, aggression, and such are quickly and easily solved using these methods. I FELT SICK. I’ve always known that all shelters, humane societies, rescue groups, or whatever are NOT created equal, but this came as a tremendous shock to me. …

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Info-Share

Our Canine Evacuation Plan

After I read this entry over at Days of Speed & Slowtime Mondays and after interviewing veterinarians who made it through summer floods in Iowa, I decided to develop a dog evacuation plan. Around here, the danger is primarily wildfire, which generally means a decent amount of notice to evacuate. Here are the details:
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Musings

Who me? Getting OCD?

Lilly’s regimented behavior modification plan may help her overcome her generalized anxiety, social phobia, sound sensitivity, and other fear-based issues, including snarking at other dogs. BUT, I think it’s making me obsessive-compulsive. I feel like I’m developing OCD. …

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Hot News | Info-Share | Musings

Taking Dog-Dog Issues Seriously: Another cautionary tale

Last Friday, one of my canine nieces underwent surgery to repair a compound fracture in one of her rear legs. Daisy, a poodle-yorkie mix (apparently known as Yoodles in some circles), had a run-in with a bigger dog with whom she shares a fence line. The other dog is already “red flagged” by animal control for some aggressive act, but since it’s unclear which direction the fence breach originated, the encounter, which broke Daisy’s leg, doesn’t count as another strike against him. From my perspective, there are many lessons here.
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Dog Training Update | Dogs on Drugs

Weekly Training Update (Aug 22)

While this is technically week 5 of the new plan, it is the first week with Lilly on the full therapeutic dose of clomipramine. So, she’s up to 60 mg twice a day, plus the .5 mg of alprazolam twice a day (that dose has been the same since we added it). So, we’re up to ramming speed in terms of brain chemistry. Like me, you might be wondering: Now what?

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Musings

On the Scale of Dog Loyalty

By now, you’ve likely heard news reports about the German Shepherd who stayed with her owner’s body for 6 weeks, after the man committed suicide in a rural part of my home state, Colorado. It’s very sad. At the same time, it got me wondering — On the loyalty scale, where would my dogs rank? …

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Musings

Curses Upon Their Cheesy Heads

Cheese plays a tremendous role here at Champion of My Heart. I hide pills in cheese for easier medication dispensing. I use cheese as training food. We’re a cheese eating bunch. So, my head just might explode thanks to new industrial packaging on Frigo String Cheese because it’s impossible to open. If you’ve ever unzipped a stick of string cheese, you know that happy sound. This new stuff, I swear, was designed to survive a nuclear attack. …

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Dog Training Update | Dogs on Drugs | Info-Share | Musings

Why the Focus on Sit-Stay

Loyal reader and occasional classmate Claire asked in her comment Friday: “Just curious — what’s the idea underlying all of the sit-stay work?” I bet a lot of you are wondering that. …

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